


surrender (but don't give yourself away)

by Gruoch



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Identity Reveal, If you can’t already tell from the tags, I’m Dr Frankenstein, Johnny “I’m too pretty to suffer like this” Storm, Light Angst, M/M, OR IS IT??, Peter “notorious human disaster” Parker, Pining, Unrequited Love, a double dose horny himbo rom-com birthday treat for my sweet, it’s just me & my whims, risky sex, tfw your superhero crush turns out to be your horrible dirtbag friend, the MJs own the single brain cell, this fic has never met canon in its life, this is my monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:42:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gruoch/pseuds/Gruoch
Summary: Johnny is in a bank in the middle of a tricky armed robbery-turned-hostage-situation when he receives some of the most devastating news of his life:Peter Parker is Spider-Man.Yes, you heard that right, folks—Peter “I’m a dumpster gremlin who only owns a single pair of shoes and can’t drive” Parker. Peter “I gave myself a stress ulcer in college and puke whenever I’m slightly inconvenienced because I’m a neurotic dweeb” Parker. Peter “it’s perfectly fine to eat food out of trash cans as long as it’s on top” Parker.ThatPeter Parker.
Relationships: Johnny Storm & Mary Jane Watson, Michelle Jones & Johnny Storm, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Comments: 239
Kudos: 555
Collections: Avidreaders Spiderman completed faves





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blondsak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondsak/gifts).



> Happy (early) birthday dearest Blondsak!! Here are your two fave idiots and some filthy, filthy smut to celebrate another year on this Earth 😂❤️

Johnny is in a bank in the middle of a tricky armed robbery-turned-hostage-situation when he receives some of the most devastating news of his life:

Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

Yes, you heard that right, folks—Peter “I’m a dumpster gremlin who only owns a single pair of shoes and can’t drive” Parker. Peter “I gave myself a stress ulcer in college and puke whenever I’m slightly inconvenienced because I’m a neurotic dweeb” Parker. Peter “it’s perfectly fine to eat food out of trash cans as long as it’s on top” Parker.

_ That _ Peter Parker.

“No,” Johnny murmurs to himself, horrified, a cold sweat breaking out down his spine.

The dumpster gremlin is standing at the back of the bank with Michelle. They both have their arms raised above their heads along with the rest of the bank’s terrified customers while masked men with guns roam around and bark orders at the bank employees.

As could be expected, it’s a rather tense situation, but Johnny barely notices the armed men. He’s too busy watching Peter destroy his entire world by revealing that he—Peter-fucking-Parker— _ is the masked vigilante known as Spider-Man. _

“No,” Johnny says again, feeling the blood drain out of his face. He shakes his head.

Peter, who has been not-so-subtly miming firing webs for the last several minutes, rapidly nods his own head, beaming at Johnny from across the room. His shirt has a huge hole in the collar and he’s missing a fucking tooth like some kind of janky hobo jack-o-lantern. 

Johnny feels ill.

“No, no, no,” he whines. He looks over at Michelle, desperate for some kind of reassurance that this is all an elaborate joke, a terrible misunderstanding, a nightmare…

Michelle, hands still raised above her head and looking a little too bored for someone in a hostage situation, gives him a small shrug, a smirk turning up the corner of her mouth.

“Noooo,” Johnny groans, his chin briefly dropping against his chest. He sighs, half-heartedly flaming on before tackling the nearest gunman.

“That was fun,” Peter says later, after the last gunman has been neutralized and all the hostages evacuated.

“Mm,” Johnny grunts, still reeling in the denial phase of grief.

Peter looks over at him, an apologetic smile appearing on his face. “Hey, sorry for like, just springing the whole identity thing on you like that. It’s not how I woulda wanted to do it, but, you know...people coulda died, so…”

He takes a step closer to Johnny, his expression going serious as he drops his voice. “I hope you understand that you  _ cannot _ tell  _ anyone _ about this. If I get even a  _ whiff _ that you merely  _ hinted _ about my identity to someone, I’ll straight up murder you, no joke.”

“Noted,” Johnny stiffly replies.

Peter smiles again, slapping Johnny on the back and knocking the wind out of him. “Thanks, man. I hope this doesn’t make things weird between us.”

“Hm? Weird? Why would it make anything weird?” Johnny asks with exaggerated confusion, his voice coming out a full octave higher than usual. “No, bro. We’re totally cool. Very cool. Not weird at all.”

“Cool,” Peter echoes, looking relieved. He clears his throat, gesturing to Michelle. “Anyway—we’re supposed to be meeting May for lunch but now I gotta go to another bank branch, so we better run or we’re gonna be late.”

“Cool,” Johnny repeats like a broken record, his brain still glitching, injecting the word with artificial brightness. “Cool, cool, cool.”

Peter clears his throat again, looking a little uncomfortable now as he puts an arm around Michelle’s shoulders and starts towards the exit. “Okay—see ya around, Torchie.”

Johnny manages a rictus grin. Michelle offers him a sympathetic smile over her shoulder as she and Peter walk out of the bank.

The grin on Johnny’s face immediately turns into a frown.

“Oh, boy...I’m fucked,” he mutters despairingly. 

***

Because the thing is—Johnny is madly, furiously, unrepentantly in love with Spider-Man, and can you blame him? Spider-Man swings around the city fighting crime in a skin-tight suit that leaves  _ nothing _ to the imagination (and yet, Johnny still manages to do a lot of imagining, usually late at night alone in his bedroom, or in the shower in the morning, beating his meat raw). 

And it’s not just the bangin’ bod—Spider-Man has this whole badass lone-wolf masked vigilante thing going on, and sure, some of his jokes are corny as hell, and yes, he’s moody and has a bad temper and a penchant for committing disturbing acts of extreme violence, but  _ only _ when it’s well deserved, and otherwise he’s sharp and witty and kind, and he’s got a brain the size of Mr. Fantastic’s. He’s the perfect package.

Except that he’s Peter Parker, who is not by  _ any _ stretch of the imagination perfect. He is, in fact, the opposite of perfect. He is a disgusting little sewer rat in a human suit.

Worse still, he’s Johnny’s best bro. Unfathomable, but true. Which would make you  _ think _ he’d be comfortable enough to say to Johnny,  _ hey, pal, my bro, my friend for life, I know this is crazy, but I’m Spider-Man. _

You’d think that, but you’d be wrong, because up until today Johnny had  _ no idea _ . Not a fucking clue. Nada. Ziltch. And honestly, it hurts a little that Spider-Man—that  _ Peter _ —didn’t trust him enough to tell him. 

But he has an idea of someone who  _ did _ know.

Johnny shows up at Michelle’s apartment later that night, furiously banging on her door. He’s leapt head first from the denial stage of grieving into anger, and he can practically feel steam pouring out of his ears. 

Michelle opens the door, raising her eyebrows questioningly at him.

Johnny jabs an accusing finger at her face. “ _ You _ .”

Michelle’s eyebrows climb higher. “Me?”

“You  _ knew, _ ” Johnny spits at her, pushing past her into the apartment. He spins around, hands on his hips, glaring at her. “You knew...about Spider-Man...about... _ Peter Parker. _ ”

Michelle shuts the door and turns to face him. She nods. “Yep.”

Johnny lets out an indignant squawk. “You...let me come here and pour my heart out about my feelings for Spider-Man for  _ months _ , and you  _ never _ said anything. I told you all of my deepest, darkest,  _ most  _ perverse sexual fantasies about him, fantasies that you  _ then _ used in your smutty Spider-Man fanfiction—and you  _ never _ told me. All along,  _ you knew. _ ”

“I did,” Michelle confirms with sadistic delight.

“You’re a  _ monster _ ,” Johnny says, wounded. “What happened to your commitment to always telling the brutal truth? Or does that just apply when you hate my outfit?”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Look...it wasn’t my secret to tell. He’s very protective about it, and for good reasons. I respect that. And honestly? I kinda thought you already knew. He’s pretty terrible at keeping his identity a secret if you just pay the slightest bit of attention to him.”

And that’s the problem right there, Johnny realizes. He hasn’t paid Peter Parker enough attention. Peter has always just been his nerdy little buddy who had an annoying tendency to flake out of plans at the last minute and never paid the rent on time when they were roommates in college. He was too ordinary, too  _ awful _ , to be Spider-Man.

“I’ve got a serious problem,” Johnny says, slumping down onto Michelle’s sofa. “You know my feelings for Spider-Man. I want him to father my children. I want to pin him down and ride his dick into the sunset. I wanna eat his ass till—”

“Okay, yes, I get it,” Michelle interrupts. “You have a raging hard-on for Spider-Man.”

“But it’s  _ more _ than that,” Johnny continues. “I don’t just have a raging boner for Spider-Man in my pants. I have a raging boner for him in my  _ heart _ . And now...I think I have one for Peter, too.  _ Peter _ , MJ! Do you know how horrible that is?”

Michelle nods, shrugging. “Yeah, I do. Probably better than anyone. Tragic white boys who need therapy...it’s my one weakness, I hate to say.”

“I can’t let this happen,” Johnny pleads. “I have  _ standards _ , MJ—my last girlfriend was a famous actress and model. I can’t go from that to  _ Peter-fucking-Parker _ .”

Michelle raises an eyebrow. “You mean Mary Jane Watson? She’s had one minor role as the girlfriend in that shitty CW Spider-Man series, and they fridged her after the first season.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t her fault. That was bad writing,” Johnny insists. “Everyone agrees she was the best part of that garbage show. She’s going places.”

“Sure,” Michelle says generously. “I thought she was very talented and charismatic. They absolutely did her dirty.”

Johnny covers his face with his hands, groaning. “I gotta kill this now, Em. I need you to list off all the reasons being in love with Peter Parker is a terrible idea,  _ please _ .”

Michelle snorts. “How long can you stay? ‘Cause this could take a while.”

She sits down beside Johnny on the sofa, her expression softening. “Seriously, though? This could be a good thing.”

Johnny lifts his head to blink at her in disbelief. “ _ Good _ ? How is this  _ good _ ? This is  _ terrible _ .”

Michelle rolls her eyes again. “Look, you’re always coming over here moaning about how bad you wanna bone Spider-Man and how he doesn’t even notice you. But it’s like you said—Peter is  _ horrible _ . You don’t wanna bang Peter. And now that you know Peter is the dude under the mask, you can move on from Spider-Man and, more importantly, stop constantly bothering me about him.”

Johnny straightens up, stunned. “Holy shit, you’re right. This is... _ perfect _ . I’m finally free.”

He turns towards Michelle, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I could kiss you right now.”

Michelle holds up a hand, grimacing. “No, you can’t.”

Johnny blows her a kiss, anyway, which she pretends to dodge.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for the smutty fanfiction, but you’re an angel,” he tells her as he gets up to leave, feeling lighter than he has in many, many months.

***

The euphoria lasts approximately a week. Johnny spends most of that time fighting murder bots in Doomstadt and not thinking about Spider-Man even  _ once _ during the whole trip, which pretty much confirms to him that he’s been cured. Johnny can laugh this whole ridiculous Spider-Man crush off, go back to being bros with Peter, and move on with his life.  _ Perfect _ . 

He wakes in his bed on his first morning home in New York, feeling awash in a general sense of contentment and peace with the world, whistling tunelessly to himself as he showers and gets dressed. He heads out for a lazy late morning flight through the city, waving to his legions of adoring fans as he passes overhead, basking in a brand new day.

Johnny’s been out about an hour when he catches sight of a little red-and-blue figure standing way down on the roof of a building below, waving up at him. Johnny zips down in a tight spiral, landing beside Spider-Man.

“Yo, Spidey, long time no see,” he greets, grinning.

“Hey, Torchie, where ya been?” Spider-Man asks, slinging a friendly arm around Johnny’s shoulders. “I missed your pretty face.”

Johnny feels a rush of warmth in the pit of his stomach at those words that instantly transforms into dread, because  _ oh...oh no… _

“You did?” he asks, his voice coming out a little strangled. 

“Yeah, I sure did, buddy. I was pining away here all by my lonesome,” Spider-Man continues, playfully pulling Johnny in closer. “I was dreaming about ya, handsome.”

_ He’s just being an ass _ , Johnny has to remind himself. His heart is racing anyway.  _ Oh god, could Pete hear it? Spidey has those creepy spider super senses… _

Johnny clears his throat, stepping out from under Spider-Man’s arm and putting some distance between them. 

“Well. I’m back. Just had to go do some Fantastic Four business in Latveria. You know, take out some murder bots and bloodthirsty dicators hellbent on world domination...the usual,” he says with forced casualness. _ Be cool, be cool, be cool. _

“Oh, yeah, regime change. Sounds like a great time,” Spider-Man says dryly. “You wanna grab a hotdog with me? I skipped breakfast to drag a bus out of a canal this morning and now I’m starving. My treat.”

“Yeah,” Johnny replies with an ongoing artificial brightness, like he isn’t dying inside. “But only if you buy me onion rings, too.”

“Always,” Spider-Man says, lightly punching Johnny in the arm before leaping off the roof.

Johnny looks after him, his stomach sinking.

“I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked,” he mutters to himself, morosely following after Spider-Man. 

They grab hotdogs and onion rings from a nearby street vendor and then retreat to another rooftop, sitting right on the edge with their legs dangling off the side. Spider-Man— _ Peter,  _ Johnny desperately tries to remind himself, to no effect—is yammering on and on about something,  _ blah blah blah science blah blah blah punching,  _ but Johnny is too busy being mesmerized by the sharp angle of his bare jaw under his rolled-up mask to follow whatever nonsense is coming out of his mouth around a giant bite of half-chewed hotdog.

_ This is stupid, Storm, _ Johnny thinks.  _ You’re both grown ass men. Just tell him how you feel. Better yet—lean over and lay a big sloppy kiss on him. You can do it. Man up, you dummy. Grab the spider by the horns and kiss that ugly idiot. _

He offers Peter a napkin instead. “You got mustard on your face.”

“Thanks,” Peter says around another huge mouthful of hotdog, taking the napkin. He wipes his mouth, managing to miss the mustard at the corner of his lips. He points at the half-eaten hotdog in Johnny’s hand. “You gonna finish that?”

Johnny looks down at it. His own appetite has vanished. He feels like he’s swallowed a rock and it’s sitting like an anchor in his gut. He’s starving but not for food.

“I’m good, here,” he says, handing it over to Peter and watching him cheerfully demolish it, oblivious to Johnny’s despair.

Peter swallows down the last of the hotdog and then sucks the grease from the tips of his gloved fingers like an animal before finally rolling his mask back down. Johnny is disgusted and turned on at the same time. 

Peter turns to look at him with those big white eyes of his mask. “You wanna race down to the end of Manhattan?”

“After eating a street dog and onion rings?” Johnny asks, leaning back on his elbows and placing a hand on his stomach. He blows out a breath through puffed cheeks. “Nah, I’ll pass.”

Peter shrugs, getting to his feet. “Well...guess I’ll see you around, Torchie.”

“Yeah. See ya, Spidey.”

Peter gives a little wave before stepping off the roof. He disappears from view for a moment, reappearing a second later near the building across the street, swooping by on a silk line.

Johnny watches him until Peter disappears from view, the ache in his stomach worsening.

“Oh, man—I am fuuuucked,” he laments, crushed.

***

The situation, Johnny has realized, is far more fucking dire than he had initially thought, and a situation this desperately fucked calls for extreme measures. He takes off, zooming at lightning speeds northward across the city and then beyond, the air crackling around him from the high heat his flaming body gives off.

Johnny lands just outside of Tony Stark’s lake house, leaving a perfect smoldering circle on the immaculate lawn behind the house, and then heads inside without bothering to knock.

He finds Tony Stark in the cabin’s sunroom, misting a row of vibrant green ferns perched on a long table.

“No,” Tony says before Johnny can even get a word out, not bothering to look up from his work tending to his ferns.

Johnny ignores him and wanders over to slump on the bench at the table, holding his head in his hands. “Mom, I really need some advice.”

“Okay, how about this little nugget of wisdom—get out of my house,” Tony replies, spraying another fern. “And quit landing near my begonias. You’re scorching the hell out of them.”

Johnny continues to ignore him, letting out a woebegone sigh. “You see, there’s this guy, and I kinda...have a  _ thing _ for him. But he has  _ no _ idea, ‘cause he’s really smart—like,  _ genius _ smart, right? But also really dumb, and—”

“Oh, god,” Tony says, the color draining from his face as he drops his spray bottle and grips the edge of the table for support. “You’re talking about Peter.”

“What? No, no— _ Peter? _ That little nerd? No way, man,” Johnny protests. 

Tony turns towards him and fixes him with a hard look. 

Johnny sags on the bench, defeated. “Okay, yes, I’m talking about Peter. I’ve got it  _ bad _ for that dweeb, okay? But it’s really  _ your _ fault. You made him that Spider-Man suit, and that thing is like,  _ painted _ on. Have you ever seen him bend over in it—”

Tony picks up his spray bottle and starts aggressively squirting Johnny in the face with it.

Johnny holds up his hands to ward him off, sputtering. “Dude, what the hell? Quit that!”

Tony puts the bottle down, jabbing a finger in Johnny’s face instead, his voice shaking with barely contained fury. “If you think I’m gonna help you... _ seduce _ Peter, you’re even stupider than I thought.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Johnny says, holding his hands up again. “No, man, you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t wanna seduce Peter—he’s  _ terrible _ . I  _ hate _ this. I’m trying to destroy my attraction to him. That’s why I’m here. I need you to threaten me within an inch of my life, so the fear will kill my Peter boner.”

Tony presses a hand to his forehead, sighing, before making a shooing gesture with his hand. “Alright. Yeah, I can do that. I’d be happy to do that. But go to the kitchen first. I don’t wanna swear in front of my ferns. It’ll make them wilt.”

“Yeah, man, whatever you want.” Johnny practically skips into the kitchen, relieved. He sits down at the kitchen island, looking up at Tony expectantly. 

“Really lay into me,” Johnny encourages. “I’m seriously horny for him and it’s destroying my life. Don’t hold back.”

Tony does a full-body shudder, grimacing. He sticks a finger in Johnny’s face again, shaking it threateningly. 

“If you  _ dare _ put your sweaty little paws on him—if you even  _ look _ in his direction,” he starts, growling through clenched teeth, “I’ll send every suit I have after you. They’ll bring you back here, and then I’ll have DUM-E castrate you with a pair of gardening shears. And  _ believe _ me, that little piece of junk doesn’t have the dexterity to make that a quick or painless operation.”

Johnny absorbs this threat, chewing the inside of his cheek. Then he sighs, his shoulders drooping.

“It’s not working. I still wanna bang him.” He pauses, considering. “Actually, I kinda wanna bang him more now. I don’t know what that says about me as a person.”

Tony’s chin drops to his chest. He jabs a hand towards the door. “Get out. Get out now, before I wring your neck with my bare hands.”

“Still not working,” Johnny says morosely, sliding off the chair and stumping towards the door with heavy, defeated steps.

***

Johnny decides to deal with this problem the same way he always does: by boldly facing it head on.

At least, he does a lot of fantasizing about handling it this way. In his daydreams, he finds Spider-Man waiting for him—somewhere private and romantic...like on the Statue of Liberty’s lantern...at sunset, the city skyline set against peachy cotton candy clouds...the temperature a pleasant seventy-three degrees, a light salty breeze softly wafting across the harbor. Perfect.

_ Hey, Torchie, _ Spider-Man says in these fantasies as Johnny lands beside him. He’s still wearing the mask but Johnny knows he’s smiling under it.

_ Spidey, I got something I need to tell you, _ Johnny replies seriously, drawing nearer. The breeze gently tousles his hair in a perfectly aesthetic manner, the amber glow of the setting sun highlighting the planes of his face.

Spider-Man reaches up and puts a finger on Johnny’s lips.

_ I already know what you’re gonna say, and...I feel the same way. I love you, Johnny Storm, _ he says, _ and now I want you to bend me over this rail and plow me all night long, under the stars and in the sight of God and anybody across the harbor using those coin-operated binocular things in the Battery. _

_ Baby, I was hoping you’d say that,  _ Johnny replies, taking Spider-Man in his arms. Spider-Man swoons a little, which probably isn’t something the real Spider-Man would do, but this is Johnny’s fantasy so he allows himself to indulge.

Johnny reaches up to tug off Spider-Man’s mask, revealing—

Peter Parker.

“Hellooooo, anybody home?” Peter says to him. “The light’s been green for a year, dumbass.”

Johnny comes crashing back to Earth behind the wheel of his car, his return to reality heralded by a chorus of angry honking from the vehicles queued up behind him at the traffic light. He shakes off the last lingering threads of his daydream, pressing the gas pedal and roaring through the intersection.

“When are you gonna get your license?” Johnny asks sourly. “I feel like I’m gonna be fifty-years-old and still chauffeuring you around.”

“I live in New York City. I don’t need to drive,” Peter replies, rolling his window down to stick his head and hand out of it, flashing the bird at the driver behind them who has continued laying on his horn. “Alright, alright, we’re moving, you jackoff! Go around!”

He twists back around to face forward. “Man, people in this city are such assholes.”

“Yeah, they are,” Johnny agrees, hunching over the wheel.

Peter pulls the sun visor down and slides open the flap over the mirror, offering his reflection a glum grin. He pokes his tongue through the gap where his right incisor should be. “Is my missing tooth really noticeable?”

“Not at all,” Johnny lies. “Who fucked your mouth up, anyway?”

Peter flips the visor back up. “Attuma, the big jerk.”

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “Attuma? Attuma the Barbarian? Attuma, Breaker of Oceans? Isn’t that a little above your pay grade?”

“Everything’s above my pay grade,” Peter says dryly. “Why do you think I’m going to yet another job interview?”

He sits back in his seat, smiling at Johnny. “Hey, look at us—talking shop in our civvies. This is nice.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s great,” Johnny says with manufactured cheer. He casts a sidelong look at Peter, then adds, “We coulda been doing this a long time ago, you know.”

“I know,” Peter says simply. 

Johnny waits for him to explain why he  _ didn’t _ , then, but Peter has flipped the sun visor down again and is absorbed with anxiously attempting to smooth down his unruly curls in the mirror. Johnny makes himself look away, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he weaves his way through traffic.

They pull up in front of the nondescript building that houses a research lab where Peter will be interviewing. Johnny frowns up at the crumbling brick and tiny windows. Why Peter doesn’t just ask Reed or Tony Stark for a fancy science job is a mystery Johnny will never understand.

Peter unbuckles his seatbelt and opens his car door before leaning towards Johnny, grinning. 

“Alright. Gimme a kiss for good luck, big boy,” he purrs, lips pursed in an exaggerated kissy gesture.

Johnny rolls his eyes, planting a hand on Peter’s face and shoving him away, even though all he wants is to pull Peter closer. “Get outta here.”

“See ya later, Torchie,” Peter says, still grinning as he gets out of the car.

“See ya, Petey,” Johnny calls back. “Good luck.”

He sits in the parked car and watches Peter climb the stairs to the building’s entrance. Peter stops at the top, turning to give Johnny a little wave before opening the door and going inside.

As soon as Peter is out of sight, Johnny lets out a long groan, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel.

“I am  _ so _ fucked,” he mutters to himself, the final fragile afterglow of his fantasy washed away in the swelling tides of misery.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s starkly clear at this point that this issue with Spider-Man—with  _ Peter _ —isn’t going to magically resolve itself. Johnny’s in so deep he’s drowning and he doesn’t know which way is up. So he decides to take the most adult, mature approach he can think of:

He avoids Peter and Spider-Man all together.

He’s not a  _ complete _ jerk about it—he still answers Peter’s sporadic texts requesting rides or sending invitations to hang out with a laundry list of vague excuses. He pretends not to see Spider-Man waving at him from the rooftops while he’s out for a flight, zooming up higher and higher until the city is a little grey speck far below. He eagerly volunteers for peacekeeping missions that take him to the opposite side of the country, the opposite side of the world, the opposite side of the  _ galaxy _ . He tries to forget his dreams about Peter’s lopsided smile and his skinny fingers and the narrow valleys and ridges of his ribs that show whenever Peter does one of those arms-over-the-head stretches, yawning so wide it looks like his jaw is about to come unhinged.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man doesn’t get the memo that Johnny is desperately trying to pry himself free from him.

Johnny’s just touched down on the sunny rooftop terrace of a fancy new condo building, taking a little break from flying, when a voice speaks directly into his ear from behind.

“Boo,” the voice says, the speaker standing so close that Johnny can feel the warmth of their breath on the side of his face.

“Gah!” Johnny yelps, wildly flailing his arms and legs as he spins around. Spider-Man looks at him, expressionless with the mask, his head slightly cocked.

“Fuck! You scared the shit outta me,” Johnny says, clutching at his chest.

“Are you avoiding me?” Spider-Man asks bluntly, the lenses of his mask narrowing.

“Huh? No, I’ve just been...busy...with...you know...stuff. And...things,” Johnny replies, trying to get his racing pulse under control.

“Mm,” Spider-Man grunts, unconvinced, lenses narrowing even more. The menacing act drops a second later, his shoulders curling inward as he shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“Is this ‘cause of the whole secret identity thing?” he asks. “‘Cause, look, I’m really sorry, it’s not like I wasn’t  _ ever _ gonna tell you, but—”

“What? No, hey, I don’t care,” Johnny quickly assures him. “Seriously. I’ve just been...busy. That’s all. I mean, if anything, it’s cool you’re Spider-Man—that you’re Peter Parker. Really...simplifies things.”

He flashes Spider-Man a pained grin.

“Okay. Okay,” Spider-Man says, sounding relieved. He rocks up on his toes. “So...are you busy now? ‘Cause I figured out Tony’s Netflix password again and I’ve got a whole list of cheesy rom-coms I’m dying to watch.”

“Yeah, sure, come over now,” Johnny says, his stomach instantly tying itself into knots. “You know I have a Netflix subscription, right? You don’t have to keep hacking into Tony Stark’s account.”

“I know, but I get a sadistic pleasure out of screwing with his algorithm,” Spider-Man says cheerfully, walking alongside Johnny to the edge of the building.

He leaps off, but Johnny waits a beat, taking a few deep, steadying breaths.

“It’s a couple of crappy rom-coms, Storm, you can handle this. Just be normal. Two normal bros, hanging out, being pals,” he mutters to himself, before igniting and following after Spider-Man.

***

He is  _ not _ normal. He has completely lost his goddamn mind. He is madly in love with Peter-fucking-Parker, every scrawny, depressing inch of him, from the top of his messy curly-haired head down to his skinny bony feet. Their weeks of separation have had zero effect on Johnny’s feverish longing. If anything, their time apart has stoked the flames of his yearning even hotter—sitting there in his living room while some dumb rom-com plays on the TV, Johnny feels like a starving man come face-to-face with a banquet he can’t eat. His mouth is practically watering.

Beside him, Peter snores noisily, his head tilted at an awkward angle against the back of the sofa, mouth hanging slightly open. Johnny wants to find him obnoxious and repulsive; instead, he feels a kind of aching tenderness for this display of vulnerability. He wants to do something ridiculous, like gently lay a blanket over Peter, maybe lean over and kiss his temple, the corner of his mouth, the soft spot under his ear…

There’s a burst of noise from the TV as the movie shifts into a whacky car-chase scene. Peter jerks upright with a snort, his eyes opening to squint at the screen, frowning, before he turns his head to see Johnny staring back at him.

“Was I sleeping?” he mumbles.

“Yep,” Johnny replies, trying to play it cool and like he hasn’t been creepily staring at his friend’s unconscious body for nearly an hour. “I don’t think you’ve ever made it past the half-hour mark on any movie we’ve watched together. I’m honestly not sure what the point of these movie nights are, since I’m basically watching some shitty movie you picked out by myself every time. I think you just come here to sleep in an apartment not infested with roaches.”

“Wrong—I also come here to eat your food. God, I’m beat,” Peter says, yawning hugely. “Sometimes I wish Doc Ock would put me in a coma again just so I can get some rest.”

He collapses sideways on the couch, lying down on his side. The top of his head presses against the outside of Johnny’s thigh, near his hip.

Johnny feels his mouth go bone dry.

“You want something to drink? I really want something to drink,” he says, his voice sounding like it’s being scraped across a cheese grater. He practically leaps off of the couch and sprints towards the kitchen. He rummages through the fridge for far too long, thinking of roadkill, his third-grade teacher’s saggy septuagenarian bosom, moldy bread—anything that might kill his literal and figurative hard-on for his horrible best friend.

“Beer?” he casually calls over his shoulder, like he’s not having a complete crisis.

“Nah, I’m good,” Peter calls back. He’s sitting upright again. Johnny spies the back of his curly head poking up over the back of the sofa.

Johnny takes a deep breath, cracking open a beer for himself and chugging the whole thing in seconds. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and quietly clears his throat a few times, until he’s feeling like he’s in possession of his traitorous body again.

He grabs another beer and returns to the sofa, flopping down beside Peter to finish watching the movie. He settles into the cushions and takes a swig of beer, acting as cool as a cucumber. Perfectly normal. Just hanging out with his bro, just two pals chilling, like they’ve done for years, like—

“For real, though—why didn’t you ever tell me you’re Spider-Man?” Johnny blurts out.

Peter looks at him, eyebrows raised. He shrugs. “Kinda defeats the purpose of a secret identity if you tell everyone. Don’t take it personally.”

Johnny takes it a little personally. A  _ lot _ personally, if he’s honest.

“Okay, yeah, but—there  _ are _ people who know, right?” he presses. “Michelle knows.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t tell her. She figured it out on her own.”

“Okay, okay, that’s good, but—who else?” Johnny asks. “Mother?”

Peter snorts. “Of course Tony Stark knows. He probably knows the exact time down to the second when I took my last leak and how many fluid ounces I produced. He’s a weirdo and a bully who doesn’t know the meaning of the word privacy. I had no choice in the matter.”

“Alright, yeah, I get that, but...that’s it, right?” Johnny asks, a little desperately. “No one else knows?”

“Well,” Peter says slowly, pawing at his chin. “Felicia Hardy knows because I’m a dumb slut...and I think Daredevil might have a pretty good idea it’s me under the mask…”

_ “Daredevil? _ That spooky nutjob in the goth fetish gear knows?”

_ “Maybe… _ ” Peter emphasizes. “I’m not a hundred percent clear on that. He’s big on secrecy, too. And Reed knows, of course...”

Johnny’s eyebrows practically leap off his face. “ _ Reed _ knows? You told  _ Reed? _ ”

“Yeah. And your sister.”

“Sue?” Johnny screeches, reeling. A horrible gut-punch of a thought comes to him.

“Peter...Peter—did you tell... _ Ben?” _ he whispers, half-afraid to ask.

“Oh, yeah—him too. Almost forgot about him. He beat me in an arm wrestling match and the deal was I had to tell him.”

“An  _ arm wrestling _ match?” Johnny repeats, devastated.

“Yeah, I’d drunk like twelve beers and was a little over-confident,” Peter admits. 

“What the fuck?” Johnny says, utterly heartbroken.

Peter looks over at Johnny, frowning. “I’m kinda getting the feeling that despite what you said earlier, you  _ are  _ mad about this.”

“I’m  _ not _ mad,” Johnny shrilly insists, his voice cracking under the strain.

Peter rolls his eyes, clearly unconvinced. “Look, it’s like I said before—I was  _ going _ to tell you eventually. It just never felt like the right time.”

“Peter,” Johnny says, incredulous. “You told Ben after he beat you at arm wrestling.  _ When _ is the right time?”

Peter gives an irritable twitch of his shoulder. “I dunno. Just...you know...the  _ right time.  _ It’s really not a big deal, so. Can we just watch the movie?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Good idea,” Johnny mutters, settling back into the sofa again. He takes another swig of beer, holding it on his tongue until it’s unbearably bitter before swallowing it.

_ This is stupid,  _ he tells himself.  _ You can’t live like this. You just gotta tell him. Do it, dummy. Right here, right now—there’s no such thing as a right time. Don’t be a hypocrite. _

Johnny swallows hard again. “Pete...I got something I need to tell you…”

Peter turns his head to look at him again. “Yeah?”

_ This is it, Storm...just tell him you have a thing for him. You got this.  _ Johnny takes a deep breath, wetting his lips.

“You snore  _ really _ bad,” he tells Peter instead. 

Peter blinks at him, raising his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Yeah, like a chainsaw,” Johnny continues, dying inside. “Probably ‘cause your nose has been broken so many times. You should really think about seeing a doctor. That can’t be healthy.”

Peter frowns. “But I don’t have health insurance.”

Johnny shrugs, hating himself. “Guess you’re gonna die alone, then, because there’s no way anyone is gonna wanna live with that racket night after night.”

“Ha ha,” Peter dryly replies, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, it’s the snoring that keeps me single, not, you know— _ everything _ else.”

“You’re a disaster,” Johnny agrees.  _ I want you, anyway,  _ he doesn’t say _. _

Peter snorts, giving him a playful smile. “So what keeps you around?”

“Well. Nobody’s ever said I’m smart,” Johnny mutters, sinking down into the couch cushions.

***

“I’m dying,” Johnny moans, draped across the sofa in his sister’s apartment. “My life is over.”

“Oh my god,” Sue says, not bothering to look up from the book she’s reading. “You are so dramatic. You have a new crush every other week. A few days from now you’ll be mooning after some other poor victim.”

“No, this is different. This isn’t a crush—I’m  _ in love _ with Spider-Man,” Johnny says, covering his eyes with his arm. “And now I’m in love with that disgusting idiot Peter Parker, too. It’s  _ math _ , Susie. The transubstantiation property of equality.”

“Transitive,” Sue corrects, flipping the page on her book. “And I don’t think that’s how love works.”

“It is,” Johnny insists, groaning again. “Why is God punishing me like this? I’m a good person, I’ve saved like,  _ thousands _ of people. I don’t deserve this.”

“I don’t get why you’re so bent out of shape. He’s your friend. You guys hang out all the time. He  _ can’t _ be that awful.”

Johnny sits up and throws an incredulous look at Sue. “He’s  _ Peter Parker, _ Susie.”

“Okay, yeah, Pete...struggles, a little,” Sue admits. “But he has plenty of nice qualities.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Johnny says, casting himself forlornly back onto the sofa. “He has no clue I love him, and he doesn’t return my feelings.”

“You sure about that?” Sue says, sounding equal parts bored and irritated. “He sure is willing to put up with your whiny bullshit. He must have  _ some _ positive attachment to do that.”

“He doesn’t,” Johnny insists, sniffling. “He wouldn’t even tell me he’s Spidey. He told you and Reed and Ben, but not me. Why?”

Sue shrugs. “I guess he felt comfortable enough to share it with us. The superhero biz is hard. You need people you can lean on, and we’ve been like family to him.”

“And what am I? Dog shit?” Johnny asks indignantly.

Sue sighs, flipping the page on her book. “Look, I’m sure he had his reasons for not telling you.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t trust me. Love is built on trust, Susie. I’m doomed.”

“You know what you should do, besides not bothering me anymore?” Sue says. “You should go out with someone else. Call up your hottest friend, and go get drinks. I bet you a hundred dollars you’ll have forgotten all about Peter by the end of the night.”

“You’re wrong. He’s all I think about. His stupid crooked nose and his stupid busted face and his stupid adorable curly hair that I wanna just... _ grab.” _

“Just try it.  _ Please _ . If not for your sake then mine,” Sue begs, dropping her head back against the sofa and laying the open book across her face. “I can’t stand listening to you whine anymore. In fact—the Future Foundation is hosting a charity gala downstairs tonight. Grab a date and come. You always help bring a crowd out, and it’s for a good cause. Kill two birds with one stone.”

Johnny sniffs, sitting up and gathering the shreds of his dignity around himself like a tattered cloak. He lifts his chin haughtily. “Fine. I’ll try it. I’m desperate enough to try anything at this point. My life is in the gutter.”

“Ugh, shut up,” Sue says, throwing her book at him.

***

Johnny stands on the doorstep of a fancy brownstone in a trendy part of the Upper East Side. He knocks on the door and then waits, his shoulders slumped inside of his expensive silk suit jacket.

The door opens a bit, the narrow space filled by the ample curves of a tall woman in a sleek black cocktail dress, her hair spilling in shining coppery waves over her bare freckled shoulders.

“Oh, puppy,” she purrs sympathetically as she throws the door open wider for him.

“Mary Jane,” Johnny says hoarsely, his eyes glistening, an utterly pathetic creature.

Mary Jane holds her arms out to him. “Come here. Let me kiss it better.”

Johnny collapses into her welcoming arms, laying his head against her pillowy bosom. She rubs his back.

“Who do I need to beat up for you, baby?” she asks.

“Peter Parker,” Johnny replies, breathing in her perfectly subtle perfume.

“Peter Parker?” Mary Jane muses. “Never heard of him. Is he in the industry?”

“He’s a photographer,” Johnny answers, snuggling deeper into her bosom. “A pretty decent one, actually, but he chooses to work for some shitty tabloid.”

“Sounds like a waste of good talent.”

“Yeah, well, that could be Peter Parker’s life motto,” Johnny says sourly.

Mary Jane pulls him upright, pinching his cheek. “What happened? Did that bad boy take an ugly picture of you? Is that even possible?”

Johnny sniffles. “Worse. He made me fall in love with him, but he has no idea.”

Mary Jane plants her hands on her hips, her lips pursed into an exaggerated pout. “Rude!” 

Johnny sniffs again, frowning. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Just a little,” Mary Jane says, picking up her coat from the side table in the foyer. She slips in on, flashing Johnny a dazzling smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll make you forget all about him. We always have a good time, don’t we, Johnny?”

“We do,” Johnny agrees, perking up a little as he follows her out the door.

He perks up even more once they’re at the gala. Mary Jane has a way of enlivening any gathering she’s a part of and it’s next to impossible to be in a dour mood in her glowing presence. She’s like a brilliant sun that drives away all the dark rain clouds. 

Except for one.

Johnny’s just brought another glass of wine back from the bar for Mary Jane when he spots Peter standing alone in a corner, wearing a cheap suit a size too big, one eye ringed with a dark shiner, his camera slung by a strap around his neck.

“Oh no,” Johnny moans, clutching Mary Jane’s arm for support. “He’s here.”

“Who?”

“ _ Peter Parker _ ,” Johnny hisses, pointing towards him.

Mary Jane takes a look, tapping a finger to her red lips speculatively. “Hm...you know, I can see it. He has kinda a boy next door vibe, with those big doe eyes and curls. The crooked nose is cute—gives his face some character. I like it. And the black eye...it adds a little air of mystery. Yes, very... _ interesting _ ...”

She turns towards Johnny, smiling slyly. “You should absolutely tell him how you feel.”

Johnny blinks at her, aghast. “What?”

Mary Jane nods sagely. “Yes. Right now. You look like a million bucks in that suit, he won’t be able to resist. Just walk over there and tell him. Ask him out for dinner.”

“No,” Johnny firmly replies. “I  _ cannot _ do that. It’s...things are more complicated than you understand.”

Mary Jane rolls her eyes. “Love is always complicated, Johnny, but you only live once. Now—introduce me to him.”

She grabs Johnny by the arm and starts dragging him across the floor towards Peter, immune to Johnny’s sputtering protests.

Peter notices them approaching right away—it’s impossible not to notice Mary Jane. He offers them a tight-lipped smile as they draw nearer. 

“What are you  _ doing _ here?” Johnny blurts out, a little more aggressively than he intended.

Peter raises his eyebrows, holding up his camera. “Uh...working? I’m a little short on rent this month, so I’m doing some freelance work for some lifestyle website. They sent me here.”

“Sorry,” he adds. Johnny can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or sincere. He feels a little guilty.

Mary Jane digs her elbow into Johnny’s ribs. 

He coughs, gesturing towards her. “This is—”

“Mary Jane Watson,” Peter cuts in, giving her a broad smile. He’s still missing a tooth. Johnny wonders if it would be rude to offer to pay for his dental work. “Yeah—you’re Spider-Man’s girlfriend, from the TV show.”

Mary Jane beams at him. “That’s me.”

“You were fantastic, by the way. Best part of the show,” Peter continues gushing. “I stopped watching after they killed your character off. What a dumb mistake—in my opinion, the love story was the thing that made Spider-Man relatable, you know? You humanized him.”

“You’re too sweet,” Mary Jane says, glowing under the praise, her expression softening as she looks at Peter. 

Johnny peers between the two of them with narrowed eyes, frowning.

“I dunno,” he butts in. “Didn’t seem like a believable romance to me. I mean, could you picture that scrawny little spider asshole landing a girl like  _ this?” _

“Ha, not in a million years. You two look great together, though,” Peter says with a bland smile. Something about the way he says it makes Johnny’s stomach hurt.

Peter lifts his camera again, taking a few steps back. “Can I get a picture?”

“Absolutely,” Mary Jane preens, seizing Johnny again and leaning in close as Peter backs up a little farther to make sure he can get a head-to-toe shot and raises the camera to his eye. 

Mary Jane lays her head on Johnny’s shoulder. 

“What are you  _ doing?” _ she murmurs to him through the smile she flashes at the camera. “Ask him out, you idiot.”

“No,” Johnny hisses back through his own clenched teeth.

Mary Jane makes a soft scoffing sound, tossing back her hair. “You are such a weenie. If you won’t make a move, I’ll do it for you.”

“You’ll what?” Johnny squeaks out, but Mary Jane is already stalking back towards Peter, predatory, and Johnny can’t do anything but trail anxiously along in her powerful wake.

“Can I get a sneak peek of those pictures?” Mary Jane asks Peter, before stumbling suddenly. Peter reaches out to steady her, and she spills her glass of red wine all over the sleeve of his cheap jacket.

“Whoops! I’m so sorry,” Mary Jane says with exaggerated concern, wiping at the stain on Peter’s jacket. “These goddamn heels. You’d think I’d be used to walking in them by now, but I’m a sweatpants and sneakers girl at heart.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Peter says, but Mary Jane won’t hear it. She motions to Johnny.

“Take him to the men’s room and help him clean up,” she orders. She gives Johnny a very pointed look. “The one over behind the band, where you’re less likely to be interrupted.”

Johnny looks at her, wide-eyed. His hands are suddenly sweating. He swallows and grabs Peter’s elbow, steering him towards the restroom, ignoring Peter’s protests that none of this is necessary, that the suit’s a hand-me-down and doesn’t even fit, that it’s not a big deal.

It feels, in Johnny’s opinion, like a Very Big Deal.

They slip into the restroom together. Johnny is relieved and terrified to find that it’s otherwise unoccupied. He mechanically seizes fistfuls of paper towel and hands them over to Peter, trying to slow his racing heart.

Peter futilely blots at the wine stain with the paper towel, apparently oblivious to Johnny’s internal struggle.

Johnny swallows again, leaning back against the sink counter.

_ Okay, Storm—this is it. Don’t be a weenie, _ he silently tells himself.  _ You can do this. Just ask him on a date—coffee, something casual. Start small and simple. _

“I really wanna suck your dick,” Johnny blurts out instead, immediately regretting the words, regretting coming here tonight, regretting the miserable fact that he’d ever been born.

Peter stops blotting and stares at him with huge brown Bambi eyes, like a deer in the headlights, his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline.

_ “Whoa,” _ he says. “That was...you just jumped right there, huh?”

Johnny feels sick.  _ Tell him you were joking, you idiot.  _ He desperately scrambles for something funny to say, something that will let them laugh this off and go back to being best pals, but his mind comes up blank. 

He’s still frantically searching the empty cobweb-strewn archives of his brain when Peter delicately clears his throat, looking around.

“Like...here? In this public restroom?” Peter asks weakly. “Where anyone could just...walk in on us?”

“Yep,” Johnny hears himself say. He’s possessed, that’s gotta be it—some cruel demon is possessing his body and destroying his dearest-held friendship right before his eyes, and he can do nothing to stop it, not a goddamn thing, just—

“Okay,” Peter says.

It’s Johnny’s turn to stare dumbly and blink.

“Are you fucking with me?” he finally asks, his voice cracking.

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head. He hesitates, his brow furrowing, something passing over his face— _ regret, _ Johnny thinks.

“Are you...fucking with me?” Peter asks, almost timidly.

Johnny answers him by dropping to his knees and fumbling Peter’s belt open, deciding that he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth in case it gets skittish and decides to flee. He unfastens the button and pulls the zipper down, feeling a little like he must be dreaming. He can see the outline of Peter’s dick through the dark fabric of his briefs, already half-hard, and  _ wow, fuck, _ if this is a dream he doesn’t ever want to wake up.

He slips his fingers into the fly and gently tugs Peter free of his briefs, getting his first eyeful of what Peter’s working with. It’s a very nice view. Johnny sits back on his heels to admire it, still feeling like this is all a little surreal and reminding himself to send a box of champagne to Mary Jane’s apartment as soon as he gets out of here.

After a few long moments, Peter softly clears his throat again.

“So, uh...if you’re having second thoughts that’s totally cool, but I’d appreciate it if you could tell me, ‘cause I’m standing here with my dick out in a public restroom with an unlocked door.”

“I’m just admiring the goods,” Johnny replies breezily. “And that—is a good dick. Grade A meat. I wasn’t expecting you to be cut for some reason.”

“I’m Jewish,” Peter reminds him. “Is that...a problem? My dick, I mean, not me being Jewish. If you have a problem with  _ that, _ then you and I need to have a  _ long _ heart-to-heart before we take this any further.”

Johnny shakes his head, waving a hand. “Cut, uncut—a good dick is a good dick, right? And you have a good dick. Beautiful, really, if you could call a dick beautiful. The length-to-girth ratio is—”

“Can you please stop talking about my dick before this gets any weirder than it already is?” Peter interrupts.

“Yep,” Johnny agrees, wetting his lips and scooting closer. He gets a hand around Peter again, giving him a few languid strokes.

Peter sucks in a sharp breath. “Wow, your hands are  _ really _ warm.”

Johnny looks up at him and offers a cheeky grin. “Is that good or bad?” he asks, as if the fact that Peter is getting harder in his hand doesn’t already answer the question.

“It’s great,” Peter assures him, his voice a little strained. “Really good.”

Johnny’s own dick is hard as a rock inside his dress slacks as he gives Peter’s a few more strokes. There’s a little bead of moisture already forming at the tip, and Johnny leans forward and rolls the flat of his tongue over it, grinning when he hears the sharp, cut-off little breath Peter sucks in.

What he really wants to do is take his sweet time, map every inch of Peter with his lips and tongue, savor this moment that he’s been fantasizing about forever, but he’s very aware of the fact that someone could walk in on them at any second and burst this bubble, so he pulls out all his highest-rated tricks instead with the intention of sucking Peter’s soul out of his dick as quickly and pleasurably as possible.

“Fuck,” Peter breathes as Johnny enthusiastically goes to work, leaning back against the counter like his legs can’t hold his weight on their own. 

Johnny grabs him by the backs of his thighs, feeling the tightly coiled muscle there under the cheap fabric of his trousers. He hollows his cheeks, flicking his tongue against that sensitive spot right under the head. Peter makes a muffled whining sound that goes straight to Johnny’s dick. He lets go of one of Peter’s legs to press the heel of his hand against the aching bulge between his legs, trying to take the edge off a little while he works Peter with his tongue.

Peter cups Johnny’s head in his hands, so, so gently, his touch cautious and featherlight, like he’s holding an eggshell. Johnny has seen Spider-Man rip apart a tank with his bare hands like it was made of tissue paper, and it occurs to him that to Peter there probably  _ isn’t _ a whole lot of difference between his skull and an egg. Johnny, who’s always been something of an adrenaline junkie, has never been more turned on in his life. He takes Peter even deeper, until he can feel him nudging at the back of his throat and Peter lets out a breathy, pleased grunt.

“Do you mind if I...in your mouth…?” Peter asks breathlessly.

Which is charmingly polite, Johnny thinks, and also  _ yes, fuck yes, absolutely. _

His mouth is too full of dick to verbally convey that, though, so he just swallows Peter down deeper and hopes that gets the message across clearly.

It must, because a brief time later Peter starts to roughly pant, his hips jerking a bit and his hands tightening ever so slightly in Johnny’s hair, and then he’s spilling hot and salty across the back of Johnny’s tongue.

Peter’s legs fold as soon as he finishes and he slides down the vanity to sit on the tiled floor, still panting, dick hanging out of his fly, wet and softening against his thigh.

“Fuck,” he says again, while Johnny stands and spits in the sink, bending near the faucet to rinse his mouth out, feeling pretty smug.

Peter wipes himself dry with the wad of paper towel still gripped in his hand before tucking himself away. He peers up at Johnny.

“Can I, uh...return the favor?” he asks, gesturing to the obvious predicament tenting the front of Johnny’s pants.

Johnny wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking down at Peter, whose expression is still slightly dazed and wide-eyed and soft. Johnny feels his throat and chest go hot and tight with want. He decides to seize the moment.

“Yeah. Come upstairs,” he says. 

Peter blinks at him. “Upstairs?”

“Yep,” Johnny says briskly, reaching down to tug Peter to his feet. “We should fuck.”

“We should?” Peter echoes, letting Johnny drag him towards the door. “Yeah, you’re right—we should. Absolutely. Great idea.”

“I’m known for my great ideas,” Johnny says, hoping the hard-on straining against the front of his trousers isn’t too obvious as he power-walks around the edge of the crowded room towards the elevator.

“Let’s not get too carried away,” Peter dryly replies as Johnny thrusts him into the elevator. 

Johnny backs him into a corner the second the elevator doors close, grinding against him and mouthing at his jawline, hungry,  _ starving _ , sucking plum-colored marks into the curve of Peter’s neck while Peter clutches at Johnny like his legs have gone weak again.

The elevator deposits them onto Johnny’s floor, and they tumble out of it, still tangled up together, stumbling down the hall to Johnny’s apartment. They stand at the door for a moment, Johnny trying to fumble it open with one hand while unbuttoning Peter’s shirt with the other. They finally fall across the threshold and Johnny walks Peter backwards into the bedroom, grabbing at the camera around his neck.

“Whoa, careful with that, that’s how I pay rent,” Peter says, taking hold of the camera and carefully setting it on the bedside table.

“You need a better job,” Johnny says, yanking off Peter’s suit jacket and shirt at the same time before shoving him backwards onto the bed.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Johnny tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

Peter just nods, breathless, looking a little like he’s been mauled, his throat livid with marks.

Johnny practically skips into the bathroom, turning the shower on full steam. He scrubs his ass inside and out till he’s sure it’s gotta be sparkling, impatiently working himself open with a pair of fingers while glaring down at his eager erection enthusiastically bobbing upwards towards his navel.

“Listen, buddy, don’t fuck this up for me,” Johnny tells it. “I know you’re excited and raring to go, but  _ please _ show some self-control. Don’t embarrass me in front of Spider-Man by blowing your load the second we get out there. Be cool.”

Johnny towels off and runs a comb through his hair, swigging some mouthwash. He shoots a pair of finger guns at his reflection in the mirror.

“Showtime,” he says, then takes a deep breath before opening the door to the bedroom.

He takes one step into the bedroom before nearly tripping over his own feet, because Peter Parker— _ Spider-Man— _ is stretched out in his bed like something out of one of Johnny’s most depraved fantasies, very naked and  _ very _ aroused, which is both extremely flattering and little unfair, considering the short time lapse since his last orgasm.

“Were you just giving your dick a pep talk in there?” Peter asks curiously, apparently unaware of the devastating effect he’s having on Johnny.

“What? No, why would I do that? That would be weird,” Johnny says, trying to look breezy and confident as he strolls over to the bed and not like the horny unhinged drooling gremlin he actually is.

“Kinda sounded like you were…”

“You need to get your hearing checked. I dunno what you’re talking about,” Johnny replies, hopping into bed. “And not to sound cocky, but my dick doesn’t need a pep talk.”

Peter starts to open his mouth, but Johnny clamps a hand over it before he can say anything.

“If you make some terrible dick joke about my use of the word ‘cocky,’ I’ll set this bed on fire,” Johnny warns him before releasing him.

Peter gives him a petulant look. “It was gonna be a  _ really _ funny dick joke.”

“I doubt that,” Johnny replies, leaning over and reaching for the bedside table to fish a bottle of lube and a condom out of the drawer, because he’s pretty sure he will legit die if he doesn’t get Peter’s pretty dick inside himself in the next three seconds. 

Still, he likes to be a generous lover and make sure all parties are having a good time. He holds the condom up.

“You got a preference?” he asks chivalrously.

“Huh? Oh, no—I’m good with whatever, just happy to be invited to the party at all, ha.”

“Great, because I’ve been wanting to ride your dick till I can’t walk straight for months now,” Johnny says cheerfully, fumbling the condom packet open and rolling it on Peter.

“You have?” Peter asks, almost tentatively.

“Yeah,” Johnny says, popping the cap on the bottle of lube. He pauses. “Well, Spider-Man’s. But now I know that’s you.”

“Oh,” Peter says. “Right.”

“I’ll return the favor next time,” Johnny promises, drizzling lube into his palm.

“Next time?” Peter echoes, looking up at Johnny with those big brown eyes and looking so earnestly sweet, even with the black eye and missing tooth, that Johnny could eat him whole. It occurs to him that they haven’t even kissed yet, which feels suddenly like an unacceptable travesty in need of rapid rectification.

“Next time,” Johnny repeats, leaning down and pressing his mouth to Peter’s. He works his hand down between their bodies and wraps it around Peter, slicking him up. Peter arches against him, mewling into Johnny’s mouth.

Johnny swallows the sound, deepening the kiss, biting at Peter’s lower lip, before sitting up and throwing a leg over Peter’s hips, the last of his patience gone up like smoke in a hurricane. He reaches down and holds Peter steady with one hand, planting the other on Peter’s chest. He can feel Peter’s heart hammering against his palm as he slowly lowers himself onto him, closing his eyes at that first delicious stretch.

“Jesus,  _ fuck, _ you’re hot inside,” Peter gasps out, writhing under Johnny, heels dragging against the sheets, his own eyes clenched tightly shut. “Hold still for a second, please,  _ god.” _

Johnny grins down at him. “You need me to give  _ your _ dick a pep talk? It’s rude to finish before your partner, you know. We’ve barely even gotten started.”

“Shut up,” Peter bites back through clenched teeth, eyes still closed. “And anyway, if I do, I can just go again in a minute or two, so relax.”

“What the hell—that’s so unfair,” Johnny complains, pouting. “How come I didn’t get a super dick with my powers?”

Peter gives him a smug look.“I guess some of us are just more deserving than—” he starts, before cutting himself off with a punched-out gasp as Johnny sinks down the final few inches.

“What were you saying?” Johnny asks cheekily.

“I don’t remember...doesn’t matter…” Peter mumbles, eyes clenched shut again, gasping again as Johnny starts rocking on him. His hands settle on Johnny’s thighs, featherlight as before.

“Fuck, you feel perfect, just like I thought you would,” Johnny sighs, pulling Peter up to sit so he can kiss him again, feeling feverish. The new angle this upright position strikes is doing fantastic things to his insides, pleasure sparking deep in his groin and dragging guttural little noises out of him each time he sinks down. Peter’s hands have slid up to Johnny's hips now, tugging him back on each downward stroke, his own hips rocking up to meet him.

“Yeah, that’s it, sweetheart,” Johnny encourages breathlessly, running his fingers through Peter’s curls and pulling his head back so he can nip at his exposed throat, sink his teeth into that sensitive spot where his neck meets his shoulder. Peter whimpers, eyes clenched shut again. 

“Oh, Jesus, fuck,” he says eloquently. His whole body feels tight under Johnny’s roaming hands, like a wire under extreme tension. Johnny places a hand over Peter’s heaving sternum again, feeling his heart thumping like a panicked bird against the walls of its cage.

“Relax, Petey,” Johnny murmurs to him, ignoring the burn in his thighs as he sets up a more vigorous pace, pulling a choked-back groan out of Peter. Johnny smiles against Peter’s lips and lets the hand he has pressed against Peter’s chest heat up until it’s scorching.

“Motherfucking son of a biscuit!” Peter yelps, collapsing backwards. He glares up at Johnny. “What the hell was that for?”

“You were really tense,” Johnny explains, grinning. “I was just trying to get you to relax and stop holding yourself back.”

“So you  _ burn _ me?” Peter says, scowling. “Fuck you, man.”

Johnny’s grin stretches wider. “Yeah, exactly— _ fuck me.” _

Peter takes the bait, grabbing Johnny by the hips again and effortlessly flipping him over onto his back. He pulls Johnny’s legs up around his waist and grips him by the thighs, fingers digging into the muscle there, and immediately sets about drilling into him at a demanding pace.

Johnny is instantly on cloud nine.

“Yeah, fuck, like that,” he gasps out, ecstatic. His dick is dragging back and forth against Peter’s firm abs, sending frissons of pleasure deep into his belly that explode into a supernova every time Peter drives forward with unerring aim. Johnny feels a little like he’s about to be fucked to death and he welcomes his demise with open arms, digging his heels into the backs of Peter’s thighs to urge him on.

Peter is panting in his ear, breath damp and harsh against the side of Johnny’s neck.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” he chants, sounding wounded.

Johnny holds Peter’s head in his hands.

“I got you, baby,” he promises, kissing Peter’s mouth, his cheeks and chin, the tip of his crooked nose, his eyelids, covering him in kisses, in love. “I got you.”

Peter releases a shuddering breath and then reaches a hand down between their bodies, wrapping it around Johnny. He gives him a single firm stroke from root to the tip and that’s all it takes for Johnny to skyrocket into the stratosphere. He’s not one to overstate an orgasm, but he swears on his mother’s grave that literal electric guitar-wielding angels descend into the room, shredding heavenly rifts on their divine axes as he makes an unholy mess across his and Peter’s stomachs. 

When he comes back into his body, Peter is rolling off him and flopping bonelessly onto the mattress beside him, chest heaving like he’s just run several marathons in a row.

“Holy hell,” Johnny says succinctly, still riding the wake of the wave. There’s no coming back from this, he thinks, and maybe it’s the post-orgasm glow that allows this realization to be finally met with such a sense of peace. He’s going to have to make sweet, filthy love to Peter Parker everyday for the rest of his life, kiss him and hold him and keep him tucked up under his arm when they sleep like a baby bird.

He turns his head to look at Peter. “How’re you doin’, buddy?”

“I think I’m dead,” Peter weakly replies.

“That good, huh?” Johnny says with a grin, reaching to tug Peter over so he’s lying against Johnny’s side. Johnny tucks Peter’s head under his chin, resting his cheek against Peter’s messy curls.

“Why didn’t we do this earlier?” he asks, rubbing a hand up and down Peter’s sweat-damp back. “We coulda been having mind-blowing sex this whole time. I’m furious right now.”

Peter huffs out a breathy little laugh against Johnny’s collarbone, snuggling in closer. “You never asked.”

“I’m an idiot, everyone knows that,” Johnny says, rubbing his cheek against the crown of Peter’s head like a cat.

“Hope this doesn’t make anything weird between us,” he adds, jokingly. But Peter extricates himself out from under Johnny’s arm, sitting up. There’s a funny, closed expression on his face.

“Why would this make anything weird between us?” Peter replies. “I mean, this was just like, two dudes blowing off a little steam, right?”

The warm post-coital glow instantly extinguishes. 

Johnny blinks up at Peter, feeling like the building has just collapsed around him, like a hatchet has just hacked his heart out of his chest.

“Right,” he answers, his voice sounding shattered and hoarse. He clears his throat and forces a grin onto his face, like his very soul isn’t being shredded and mangled. “Yeah, for sure. It was fun.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees, sliding out of bed and gathering up his clothes. He motions awkwardly towards the bathroom. “Do you mind if I…?”

“No, no, be my guest,” Johnny says with another pained smile.

Peter shuffles across the bedroom and disappears into the bathroom. Johnny lies flat on his back in a stunned silence, reeling, wondering how the hell this night had flipped so fast. He hears the shower turn on and an ache seizes up his chest, the agony of want and heartbreak intertwined.

Peter re-emerges into the bedroom a few minutes later, fully dressed and hair smoothed down. He collects his camera from the bedside table and then coughs into his fist. “Anyway, uh...I hate to fuck and run, but I’m still technically on the clock, and you probably should get back to Miss Watson, so…”

“Yeah, yeah, no worries. I’ll...see you around, Pete,” Johnny says with manufactured breeziness, sitting up and looping his arms over his knees.

“Yep...see you,” Peter replies, making a beeline for the exit.

Johnny swallows down the painful lump in his throat, waiting until he hears the apartment door open and then shut, before he collapses backwards onto the bed once more. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids, groaning through clenched teeth. 

“Shit, shit, shit, you idiot,” he mutters to himself. He drags his hands down his face, blinking back hot tears. His heart feels like bruised plum behind his sternum, tiny and thin-skinned and bleeding.  


“God, I am _fucked,_ ” he announces to the ceiling.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I added a chapter to this because I am incapable of accurately planning a story. Here's an extra dose of angst and smut XD

“Of all the people in the world—in the _galaxy_ —why did I have to fall in love with that miserable dirtbag Peter Parker?” Johnny asks, slouching down in the sticky diner booth he’s seated in.

Two weeks have passed since the utter, spectacular implosion of Johnny’s love life on the night of the gala. He’s spent those weeks in a spiral of grief and self-loathing, relitigating every moronic mistake he’d made that night and punishing himself for them, and dragging everyone around him into his swamp of misery—his long-suffering sister, mostly, but also Ben and once Tony Stark, who’d responded by throwing one of his beloved ferns at Johnny’s head with incredibly accurate aim for an old nerd.

Today, he’s victimizing Michelle and Mary Jane, who at least have the decency to pretend to feel sympathetic towards him.

“Really makes you question everything you thought you knew about yourself,” Michelle agrees, doodling on a napkin.

“I thought he was cute,” Mary Jane says with a shrug, eating Johnny’s untouched fries. “That curly hair…if it’s over between the two of you, I wouldn’t mind getting his number.”

“No way. I love you too much to ever burden you with the human dumpster fire that is Peter Parker,” Johnny tells her, leaning his face into his hands. “And it’s _not_ over between us—it never fucking began. It was DOA.”

Mary Jane makes a sad face at him, her plump lower lip pouting out. “Aw, Johnny, poor baby...that’s really too bad. I thought things had gone well when neither of you came back to the gala.”

Johnny lifts his head, frowning at her. “Huh? Pete went back—he said he had to take more pictures.”

Mary Jane shrugs again.

“I didn’t see him again. But then, Harry Osborn showed up a little after you two disappeared and introduced me to Jonesy here, and I forgot all about you idiots,” she says, gesturing to Michelle with a coy smile.

Johnny’s head whips around to look at Michelle.

“You and _Harry Osborn_?” he asks, aghast. “Are you— _seeing him?_ ”

“We’ve gone out a few times,” Michelle says, shrugging. “It’s not serious.”

“Wow, you really do have a thing for shitty white boys,” Johnny says. “Doesn’t dating the son of a billionaire industrialist go against your whole eat the rich thing?”

“It’s a con. I’ve been making him take me to charity events and open his fat wallet. I call it _milking the cow._ I’m like Robin Hood, stealing from spoiled trust fund babies to give to the poor.”

Johnny’s frown deepens. “Hey...I’ve gone to charity things with you and made donations before…”

“Yeah, you have,” Michelle says with a smirk.

“You’re scary,” Johnny says, morosely picking at his fries.

“I love it,” Mary Jane says, casting a wicked grin across the table at Michelle. “Wielding the feminine wiles for the greater good—forget the Fantastic Four, forget the Avengers, here’s a _real_ hero for the little guy.”

Johnny looks between the two of them, frowning again. “I dunno how I feel about the two of you hanging out. You guys are too powerful together. And anyway, I didn’t bring you here to brag about slam dunking on rich creeps and fighting institutionalized inequality—this is about _me_ and _my_ problems.”

“Sorry, J, you’re on your own,” Mary Jane says, sliding out of the booth. “I talked MJ into going to an improv class with me, and we gotta run.”

“But what about me?” Johnny asks unhappily, watching the pair of them collect their coats and handbags.

Mary Jane shrugs. “Come over later, and I’ll give you a pity BJ,” she offers.

“Wow, thanks. So helpful,” Johnny deadpans.

“I always take care of my friends,” Mary Jane says with a grin, bending to kiss his cheek.

“Good luck with your shitty white boy,” Michelle tells him.

“Good luck with _your_ shitty white boy,” Johnny replies sourly, sinking lower in the booth, left alone with a basket of cold uneaten fries and the angst of unrequited love.

***

He’s been stuck in standstill traffic for twenty minutes on his way home when his phone buzzes in the cup holder. He picks it up, expecting a text from his sister or Ben. 

It’s from Peter.

 _movie night tonight?_ is all it says.

It’s the first communication of any kind that they’ve had since parting ways at Johnny’s apartment the night of the gala. Something about the message—the casualness of it, the _normalcy_ , like whatever had happened between them that night had been a forgettable fluke and Peter’s already moved on past it—makes Johnny feel both relieved and very, very pissed.

 _Ignore him. Ghost the fucker,_ is his first petty thought. _Tell him you’re busy getting a bj from a model._

 _yep come over whenever,_ he types instead. His thumb hovers over the send button for a moment. He presses it.

“God damn it, Storm, you weak piece of shit” he mutters, tossing his phone into the passenger seat.

***

Johnny can admit that he has a reckless streak. He’s been accused of being careless, mostly by his sister and the media, which he thinks is a little unfair. He cares a lot—about his family, his city, his planet. He takes the whole superhero thing Very Seriously. He’s faced off against apocalyptic threats, gone toe-to-toe with cosmic beings of unimaginable power, fought side-by-side with the greatest heroes in the galaxy at enormous personal risk.

But sitting next to Peter Parker watching Ghostbusters in Johnny’s dimly lit living room feels like the most reckless, careless, self-destructive thing Johnny has ever done. 

They’re an hour into the movie, and for the first time in their years of weekly movie nights, Peter isn’t snoring and drooling. He’s awake, legs stretched out in front of him, absorbed with the shenanigans playing out on the screen, totally relaxed and normal, like he and Johnny hadn’t fucked a couple of weeks ago, like he hadn’t broken Johnny’s heart into a million tiny shards.

Johnny feels like he’s holding a loaded gun to his temple.

“The special effects in this movie blow,” he says with forced nonchalance, since apparently they’ve come to a silent agreement that they’re just going to pretend like That Night didn’t happen, like it hasn’t been metastasizing under Johnny’s skin for the past two weeks, eating him alive.

Peter snorts. “This movie is older than we are. Cut it some slack. It’s a classic,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. The motion pulls his t-shirt tight around his biceps. 

Johnny thinks he’s going to die. He is _literally_ going to die. He can’t possibly live like this, sitting next to Peter week after week, mere inches between them and yet so far apart.

“If you say so,” he says, his voice strangled.

He tries to focus on what’s happening on the TV, but his mind refuses to cooperate, playing out dozens of fantasies instead.

The Johnny in these fantasies is always calm, collected. Cool as a cucumber and confident. He puts an arm across the back of the sofa, a move that in his experience never really works in reality, but here in the theater of his mind he pulls it off flawlessly. He casually brushes his fingers against the nape of Peter’s neck, fingering the curls there.

Fantasy Peter turns his head to look at Johnny, offering him a playful smile.

 _Are you making a move on me, Torchie?_ he asks.

Johnny grins back at him, suggestively waggling his eyebrows. _Maybe...is it working?_

 _Oh, yeah,_ Peter purrs, twisting sideways and throwing a leg over Johnny, settling in his lap. _It’s irresistible._

 _It’s animal magnetism, baby. You and me—we’re made for each other. It’s science,_ Johnny says.

Peter sighs happily. _Yeah, tell me more about science, Johnny...it’s my love language._

 _Electrons. Galileo. Vibranium,_ Johnny says, his voice husky and seductive while Peter wantonly writhes in his lap.

 _I love you, Johnny Storm,_ Peter says, cupping Johnny’s face in his hands and looking deep into his eyes, his expression tender.

 _I love you, too,_ Johnny replies, equally tender and so very earnest.

Peter leans in closer, his eyes on Johnny’s mouth. Johnny tilts his head up to meet the kiss, and—

A window-rattling snore startles him out of his daydream.

Johnny blinks, brought back to reality. Peter has succumbed to the siren call of sleep at last, his body fallen limply over the arm of the sofa like a felled tree, mouth wide open as he snores, saliva pooling in the corner of his lips—an utterly pathetic, disgusting creature. 

Johnny seriously considers putting an end to his misery by holding a pillow over Peter’s face until he suffocates. No one would even really miss him except Aunt May and Michelle and Ned, maybe Flash. Mother might be a problem, but he’s a dinosaur and Johnny could handle him. And Susie would be a little mad, yeah, because she’s a softie who wants to save every battered creature who stumbles into her life, but Johnny could get her a rescue puppy or something to make up for the loss. It would be easy.

He gets a blanket out of the closet instead and lays it over Peter, then attempts to move him into a more comfortable position. 

Peter snorts, swatting blindly at Johnny.

“What the fuck? Are you groping me? Go away,” he mumbles.

“I’m trying to make you more comfortable, dipshit,” Johnny says, tucking the blanket under Peter’s body.

Peter mutters something inaudible before rolling over to face the back of the sofa. Johnny turns the TV off and leaves him alone, going to his bedroom and throwing himself into bed. He lies there awake in the dark, hopeless, resisting the urge to scream into his pillow.

***

Johnny doesn’t see or hear from Peter again for another couple of weeks. It’s completely by chance that Johnny happens upon him while he’s out for a flight around the city.

Johnny is heading northward across Manhattan when he spots Spider-Man in the middle of being brutally curb-stomped by the Rhino. He hovers in midair above the melee for a moment, trying to decide if he should intervene. He sighs as he watches the Rhino pick up a car and hurl it at Spider-Man, diving down in a streak of white-hot light.

“Surprise attack!” he shouts as he launches a fireball at the Rhino’s back, grinning as the lumbering hulk turns with a startled look only to get a faceful of flames. The heat instantly melts the mech suit’s metal casing, short-circuiting the wiring underneath and rendering the mechanics useless. Rhino takes a couple of staggering, disjointed steps backwards before collapsing with an enraged howl.

Johnny strolls over to his felled foe and plants a foot on him, posing for a crowd of gawking tourists like a big game hunter showing off his prize, before heading over to help Spider-Man peel himself off the sidewalk.

“And that, ladies and theydies and good gentlefolk, is how a _real_ superhero gets shit done,” Johnny says with a cocky grin, reaching down to offer Peter a hand up.

“You got lucky,” Peter says sourly, ignoring the hand to stagger to his feet on his own. “And I didn’t need your help. I had that perfectly under control.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Is there, like, a chip implanted in your brain that will make your head explode if you utter the words ‘thank you’ out loud? Is that why you’re incapable of ever expressing gratitude? Or are you just an asshole?”

Peter shrugs. “I dunno—would an asshole offer to buy you a hotdog?”

“Mm, an asshole might, but a nice guy would offer to buy me onion rings, too,” Johnny replies, his grin turning cheeky.

“Then I must be a nice guy,” Peter says, slinging an arm around Johnny’s shoulders, friendly and casual. 

Johnny takes it like a punch to the gut, winded.

He doesn’t fully recover until they’ve retreated with their lunch to the roof of an abandoned warehouse near the docks, one of their cozy little secret spots that they can go to when they want some privacy away from the hustle and bustle and prying eyes of the city.

Peter has removed his mask and is demolishing his hotdog like a garbage disposal while ranting a-mile-a-minute about his new job at the lab.

“They promised me twenty bucks an hour when they hired me, but now they’re saying they’re only paying sixteen until I pass a six month probation period,” he complains to Johnny around a mouthful of hotdog. “And let’s be real—I’m never gonna make it to six months, so basically I’m fucked here. I’m gonna have to get another part-time gig for grocery money, or learn how to survive on air and sunshine like a plant.”

“Peter...your life _sucks,_ man,” Johnny says. “I legit wanna cry listening to this. I’m fucking depressed on your behalf.” 

“Ha, yeah, makes me wanna cry sometimes, too. But that’s just life, right? Could be worse,” Peter says, offering him a crooked smile. “At least I got a shoulder to cry on with you.”

Johnny doesn’t say anything—just sits and stares at Peter silently, struck dumb by an arrow of longing that lances him straight through his heart. Peter still hasn’t fixed that goddamn missing tooth, and Johnny doesn’t even care anymore. He loves Peter’s stupid busted mouth, and the ugly shiners he constantly has ringing his eyes like a fucked up raccoon mask, and the way he snores like Satan’s rusty chainsaw because he’s been punched in the face so many times that the cartilage in his nose has been obliterated beyond even his freaky spider super genes’ ability to heal, because Peter Parker is a stupid selfless idiot who literally throws himself into the path of danger night after unforgiving night to protect a city full of selfish, ungrateful assholes, and Johnny loves him so much it’s like being consumed, like being lit on fire.

Johnny leans over and kisses him. It’s the stupidest, most reckless thing he’s ever done, and he knows he’s just gonna get his heart broken again, but—

Peter is kissing him back, one hand grabbing Johnny by the shoulder and the other cupping around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Johnny is so startled that for a moment he freezes up, but then that heat is filling him again. 

He grabs back at Peter, and they go tumbling away from the roof’s ledge, rolling ass over elbows, finally ending up with Johnny stretched atop Peter.

He pulls Peter’s arms up over his head, pressing his thumbs into the hollows of Peter’s palms, gasping into his mouth as they grind against each other.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Johnny breathlessly urges.

Peter’s panting under him, his fingers curled around Johnny’s thumbs. He bends his knees and plants his feet against the rooftop in order to get more leverage, pressing upward while Johnny pins him down.

Johnny lets go of Peter’s hands, sliding his own hands under Peter and cupping his ass, ignoring the way the rough roof scuffs his knuckles as he chases the heat building low in his belly, puffing like sprinter against the side of Peter’s neck as he rubs against him, the friction bringing him closer and closer to the edge.

Peter finishes first, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat as he bucks against Johnny, and that’s enough to send Johnny soaring after him, wet heat spreading across the front of his pants.

He rolls off Peter, lying flat on his back and panting as he comes down from the high. The mess he’s made in his pants is already cooling and turning sticky and uncomfortable, and that helps sober him up quickly.

“Fuck...I’m sorry. What the hell,” he murmurs, embarrassed.

“It’s okay. It’s fine,” Peter says, still catching his own breath. He sits up and looks down at the wet spot on his lap, grimacing. “Gross. I’ve washed a lot of bodily fluids out of this suit over the years, but never jizz.”

“Really? Not even once?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

Johnny shrugs. “I mean, you and Felicia are always traipsing around the rooftops.”

“We don’t _traipse,_ ” Peter indignantly replies. “She is _very_ classy, a _very_ classy lady. It’s not like that.”

“Yeah, real classy,” Johnny says dryly, propping himself up on his elbows. “I’ve seen her kiss you, and then while you were distracted knee you in the balls so hard you barfed.”

Peter picks his mask up, shrugging. “Yeah, well, I probably deserved it so I’m not gonna hold it against her.”

Johnny snorts. “Your love life sounds even more fucked up than mine.”

Peter looks at him, quirking an eyebrow. “How is your love life fucked up? You go out with gorgeous models and famous celebrities all the time. Does Mary Jane Watson knee you in the balls?”

“Only if I ask her to,” Johnny jokes, feeling something throb painfully in his chest. “But me and her—we’re not a thing anymore. Not like that, at least. I wouldn’t be jumping you on a rooftop if we were. I’m actually pretty monogamous, believe it or not.”

“Okay,” Peter says with a nonchalant shrug, pulling his mask on. “That’s not really any of my business, so. Whatever, man.”

Johnny feels like he’s being brutally and repeatedly kneed in the balls of his heart. He swallows hard, wetting his lips.

“I actually...kinda have feelings for someone else,” he adds, his pulse starting to race.

Peter presses his fist into the palm of his other hand, cracking his knuckles. “Oh. That’s cool.” 

“Yeah,” Johnny agrees, his mouth feeling like it’s full of sand. “Yeah...I’ve been trying to think of a good way to tell them...”

“Yeah? Well, good luck with that,” Peter says, walking over to the edge of the roof. “Anyway, uh...I got a lot of stuff going on, and I need to like, you know…” he awkwardly gestures to the damp spot near the crotch of his suit, “...clean up, so...I’ll see you on Tuesday for movie night?”

“Yeah, yeah, see ya,” Johnny agrees, waving at him as Peter steps off the roof and swings away.

Johnny collapses back onto the rooftop, covering his face in his hands. “Fuck me, I’m useless.”

***

He decides to take Mary Jane up on her offer, going over to her apartment that night and burying his grief and misery in the sweet blessed succor between her creamy freckled thighs.

Or, he tries to, at least. 

“Oh, right there,” Mary Jane mewls, her legs clamped tight against Johnny’s ears as he swirls his tongue around her wet heat. 

Johnny lifts his head, wiping his mouth on his shoulder. “Do you think I should still tell him, even though I know he doesn’t return my feelings? Like...is there some kinda bro code ethical breach I’m committing here by _not_ coming clean? Or does bro code say I should repress my feelings in order to protect the sanctity of our friendship?”

“J, honey—focus,” Mary Jane says, guiding his head back down between her thighs. “Stop thinking about that dumb boy. You’re making yourself miserable. I hate seeing you like this.”

“You want my advice?” she continues, gasping as he slides a finger inside her. “Life is too short to pine after someone too stupid to return your love. You’re a nice guy, Johnny. Someone better will come along—oh!”

She’s right, Johnny knows, his head clamped in a vice-like grip between her thighs once more as she rides out her orgasm against his face. But there’s still a stubborn, forlorn part of him that also knows he doesn’t want anyone else.

***

Johnny is a hopeless idiot, a fool, the world’s biggest dolt.

If he was smart, he would have cancelled Tuesday’s movie night. If he was smart, he would have taken a one way trip to the opposite side of the galaxy and settled on some hospitable alien planet where he could start a new life. If he was smart, he would have never fallen for a miserable dirtbag like Peter Parker.

But Johnny is stupid, which is why he is once again sitting on his sofa watching a terrible movie older than he is while the object of his adoration sits mere inches away, stuffing his face with Doritos.

Johnny thinks dying would hurt less.

Peter is wearing a stained Midtown High shirt that he must have owned since actually attending that school, because the fabric is stretched so thin and tight across his torso that Johnny can see the outline of his abs through the material. If Peter wasn’t such an oblivious buffoon, Johnny would think he’d worn it on purpose, just to torture him.

And it _is_ torture. Johnny is sweating just sitting there, his heart racing and his mouth dry as he steals little glances over at Peter. He’s been half-hard since Peter had arrived an hour or so earlier, excusing himself once to go to the bathroom and tuck his traitorous dick into the band of his briefs, like he’s a hormonal teenager plagued with uncontrollable boners again.

Peter tosses the empty Doritos bag onto the coffee table, settling back on the sofa and licking the fake cheese powder from his fingertips before stretching, his shirt riding up as he raises his arms overhead and giving Johnny an eyeful of chiseled abs. Johnny gawps at him, dick straining against its bonds.

“You want something to drink?” he asks hoarsely.

“Sure, I’ll take a beer,” Peter says, oblivious to Johnny’s agony.

Johnny practically throws himself over the back of the sofa, fleeing to the kitchen. He flings the fridge open, sticking his heated face inside and taking deep gulps of soberingly cold air, futilely willing his erection away. 

“You good with an IPA?” he calls as he grabs a bottle, hoping Peter doesn’t notice the quaver in his voice. 

There’s no reply. Johnny turns around and nearly falls backwards into the fridge when he finds himself nose-to-nose with Peter.

“Jesus, fuck!” he squeaks out. “Quit sneaking up on me like that.”

“Sorry,” Peter says with a tight little smile. 

He’s standing so close Johnny can feel the heat of his body. Johnny swallows convulsively.

“Beer?” he offers weakly, holding up the bottle.

Peter ignores it, wetting his lips with his tongue, a tiny gesture that sends a jolt down Johnny’s spine that explodes like a firecracker in his groin.

“Hey, uh...that person you said you have feelings for...did you ever tell them?” Peter asks, almost shyly.

Johnny feels his mouth go dry again. “Uh...no. Nope. Not yet. Still on the fence about it, actually.”

“Okay, good,” Peter says, taking the beer out of Johnny’s hand and setting it on the counter. “I just wanted to be sure so I don’t feel bad about doing this.”

He leans even closer and kisses Johnny.

Johnny doesn’t even resist. He grabs Peter around the neck, kissing him back, swallowing him up like a man dying of thirst who’s just found an oasis. He jumps up, wrapping his legs around Peter’s waist.

“Bedroom. Now,” he orders, kissing Peter again, sucking the very air out of his lungs.

“Yeah, okay,” Peter agrees breathlessly, effortlessly carting Johnny across the apartment, which Johnny really thinks shouldn’t be as hot as it is.

Later, facedown and moaning with incoherent bliss into a pillow while Peter pounds him into the mattress, Johnny desperately tries to remind himself that he’s not getting anything out of this besides a fantastic fuck, and he needs to be content with that. He’s going to be left with a sore ass and a room-temperature beer and an empty bed, and that’s his lot in life.

Still, it hurts when Peter immediately starts to get dressed to leave when they’re done.

“They should call you Hawkeye, ‘cause your aim’s impeccable. You really know how to nail that bullseye,” Johnny jokes, clowning through his agony.

“Ha. Funny,” Peter says as he pulls his shirt over his head, sounding more preoccupied than amused. He shuffles his feet into his shoes.

“Maybe next time you can show me what a good shot you are,” he adds, bending over to tie his shoes.

Johnny feels his chest go tight. “Next time? I mean, yeah, next time. Definitely. You scratch my back, and I scratch yours. What are friends for, right?”

“Right,” Peter agrees, offering him a tight, awkward smile. He clears his throat. “Anyway...bye for now.”

“Yep, bye, Pete,” Johnny says, watching him leave. As soon as the apartment door shuts, he rolls over and screams into his pillow. 

“Johnny, you idiot,” he groans, folding his arms over his head.

***

Peter Parker might be a miserable dirtbag, but he knows how to give fantastic head, as Johnny learns over the course of the next few weeks.

One _next time_ had led to another, and then another and another and another, and then several more after that. Johnny has spent all of his free time fucking Peter Parker every chance he can get, feeling like a junkie addicted to seeking out his next high, all the while knowing that he’s gonna come down from every burst of euphoria feeling even shittier than he did before. 

But the cruel post-coital hangover is easy to forget when he’s got his dick so far down Peter’s gullet he’s gagging on it.

It’s Peter’s enthusiasm and devotion to the act that make it so good, Johnny thinks—although Peter gets high scores for technique, too. He has one little trick in particular where he flicks his tongue right against the frenulum that has Johnny going weak at the knees every time it’s employed.

But it’s the way he looks up at Johnny with those big brown baby deer eyes, wet with tears from choking himself, adoring—like this is the best, biggest cock he’s ever sucked, the only one he ever wants again—that really gets Johnny’s engine revving. 

“Fuck, yeah, sweetheart—just like that,” he pants out while gripping Peter’s head between his hands, trying to keep his voice down. 

They’re in an alleyway behind a Shake Shack, tucked against the wall near the dumpster, the air thick with the smell of soured milkshakes and fry grease. It’s about as far from the romantic perfection of Johnny’s fantasies as reality could get, but leaning there against the grimy bricks of the wall with his dick enveloped in the wet heat of Peter’s mouth, he finds that the surroundings don’t really matter all that much.

Peter pulls off, licking flushed, spit-slicked lips, looking up at Johnny. He’s wearing the Spidey mask this time, rolled up to his nose, so it isn’t those big brown eyes that meet Johnny’s but blank white lenses, which is still pretty hot but in a different way. 

“I told you not to call me dumb names like that…baby, sweetheart—I hate it,” he complains, his voice sounding hoarse and roughed up from having a dick shoved down his throat, which is pretty hot, too. 

“Sorry, baby,” Johnny says with a grin and a wink, rubbing the wet tip of his dick across Peter’s lips. “My bad.”

Peter makes an irritated scoffing sound before swallowing Johnny down again.

“Fuck,” Johnny gasps out, knees going to wobbly once more. He can feel the tight ring of Peter’s throat squeezing around the sensitive head of his dick, and it’s almost too much to handle. He leans his head back against the brick wall behind him, shutting his eyes tightly and fighting against the white-hot pressure building in his groin, wanting to drag this out a little longer.

It’s a losing battle. Peter gives a couple of slow bobs of his head, dragging Johnny’s dick across the ridges of his palate before taking him deep again and swallowing around him, and that’s Johnny’s undoing. He nearly doubles over as he comes, gripping Peter’s head and groaning as he spurts against the back of Peter’s throat.

“Holy shit, who taught you how to do that? I wanna personally thank them,” Johnny says, leaning against the wall and trying to catch his breath.

Peter gets up and spits beside the dumpster, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

He rolls his mask back down. “Anyway...thanks for the break, but I gotta run. People to see, faces to punch...you know how it goes.”

Johnny pushes away from the wall, grabbing Peter’s arm and tugging him close before he can get away. He rolls Peter’s mask back up and kisses him, tasting his own saltiness on Peter’s tongue.

“Don’t go yet,” he murmurs against Peter’s lips, grinning as he reaches a hand down to palm Peter through his suit. “This suit shows everything. You go swinging around with _this_ on display, and you’re gonna get arrested for indecent exposure. Lemme be a pal and help you out, first.”

Peter hesitates, the bare expanse of his jaw clenched, before he gives a nod. “Yeah, okay. Make it quick. I’ve got a big drug deal I need to bust at four, and it’s all the way over in Rosedale.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Johnny gives him a sardonic salute before he goes about stripping him.

“You need to get a two piece suit made, this is ridiculous,” Johnny says, yanking the suit down until it’s hanging off Peter mid-thigh. “A leotard and tights—something to make this easier.”

“A leotard and tights? Who am I—Jane Fonda?” Peter asks, shivering. He should be absurd, standing in this dirty alleyway masked up and half-naked, hard-on tenting the front of his briefs, wiry torso littered with cuts and bruises at various stages of healing, but Johnny thinks he’s absolutely perfect.

“Why are all of your pop culture references so ancient? I feel like I’m fucking an old man trapped in a hot young babe’s bangin’ bod,” Johnny says. 

He puts an arm around Peter’s collarbones, pulling him close till his back is pressed flush to Johnny’s front, and then he tugs Peter’s briefs down enough to free his erection.

“You know who you are? You’re a little idiot with your dick out in an alleyway,” Johnny murmurs into Peter’s ear as he wraps a hand around him. “Some poor sap could stumble on us at any minute. The Daily Bugle would have a field day.”

Peter lets out a huff of laughter as he lays his head back against Johnny’s shoulder, pressing his forehead into the curve of Johnny’s neck as Johnny starts to stroke him.

“Maybe that’s part of the fun,” he says, grasping Johnny’s forearm lying across his chest.

“Holy shit!” Johnny says, tightening his grip. “You know, I always thought MJ’s smutty fics exaggerated a lot of the kinky details about you, but now I think I might be wrong.”

“You read MJ’s Spider-Man fanfiction?”

“Yeah? Why the judgemental tone? She’s a great writer _and_ she taught me this little trick,” Johnny says, rubbing his palm around the tip of Peter’s dick. He grins as Peter sucks in a sharp breath, his fingers digging into Johnny’s arm hard enough to bruise.

“Yeah, but...she writes us like...like...we’re in love or something,” Peter says, his voice sounding a little strained and breathless. “That’s not, like...weird to you, or…”

“I mean, she’s just having fun, right?” Johnny says with forced breeziness. “Like us...we’re having fun...you sure seem to be enjoying this.”

Peter’s dick is leaking a steady drizzle of precum, the clear fluid turning white and frothy as Johnny strokes him faster. Johnny’s own spent dick, pressed against the firm swell of Peter’s ass, makes a valiant attempt at getting hard again.

“Yeah…” Peter reaches up and wraps an arm around the back of Johnny’s neck, his other hand tightening again on Johnny’s forearm as his breathing turns ragged.

“Johnny, I—“ he starts, before cutting himself off with a choked-out sound as he spills hot and wet over Johnny’s fist.

Johnny strokes him through it while Peter sags against him, taking huge gulps of air. Johnny finally lets him go once he starts to soften, flicking pearly beads of spunk from his hand before wiping the rest of it across Peter’s chest.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Peter yelps, shoving Johnny away. “Nasty.”

“It’s _your_ jizz,” Johnny tells him with a grin. “I’m not gonna wipe that shit off on myself.”

“Whatever, man, wipe it on the wall or something. Gross,” Peter says, pulling his suit back up and rolling his mask down to cover his face. “I seriously gotta go now or I’m gonna be late to crash the party.”

“Yeah, I know...duty calls,” Johnny says, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. The dinginess of their surroundings seems to suddenly come into hyperfocus for him now, making their little tryst seem seedy and transactional in an uncomfortable way.

 _It_ is _transactional,_ a brittle voice in the back of Johnny’s mind reminds him. He shoves it away.

“Maybe next time we can take this back to the bedroom,” he suggests, trying to sound as casual as possible. “I feel like I’m asking for a rat bite on the ass back behind the dumpsters here.”

“Yeah, whatever you want,” Peter says distractedly, fiddling with his web shooters. He glances over at Johnny. “Text me when you’re free?”

Johnny waves him away with a grin. “Yeah, I will. See ya, Spidey. Go be a hero.”

“See ya,” Peter says, launching off a web and swinging up and away.

Johnny’s smile drops away, sinking along with his heart.

***

“ _Why_ do I keep doing this to myself? I gotta be the stupidest person on the planet,” he tells Michelle, slumped over a chair in her apartment.

“My readers think so, too,” Michelle says, typing away at her laptop. “They’re loving the smut and the slow burn, but they think you’re an idiot. I’m gonna have to have you finally confess your feelings in my next chapter, or they’re gonna jump ship.”

Johnny frowns at her. “You need a better hobby. Also, I wish you wouldn’t write me like a whiny fuckboy.”

“Art should hold a mirror up to reality,” Michelle says, shrugging. “If you don’t want me to write you like a whiny fuckboy, then don’t be a whiny fuckboy.”

“If you’re reflecting reality, then make sure you describe how massive my meat is in your next chapter,” Johnny says with a grin, making a jacking motion with his fist while Michelle rolls her eyes at him.

“I’ll be brutally honest,” she promises.

Johnny snorts, but then he gets serious. “For real, though, this is fucking up my life. I’m dying. I can’t keep doing this.”

“You could just, you know— _tell him,_ ” Michelle suggests. “Peter is really smart, but in my experience when it comes to emotional matters, you gotta hold his hand and walk him through it step-by-step.”

“ _Tell him?_ ” Johnny echoes. “I can’t tell him. He’s made it pretty clear this is purely physical for him, and it’s _killing_ me.”

He flops back in the chair. “You know, I used to think being fucked to death would be the best way to go, but actually it _blows._ ”

Michelle shrugs again. 

“So stop doing it,” she suggests, like it’s easy, like Johnny could just excise his heart and dump it in the trash, wipe his hands clean and go on his merry way.

Instead, he leaves and finds Spider-Man, hanging upside-down from a bridge like a bat. He gets his fix right there, tucked up inside the bridge’s damp spandrels, listening to the rumble of traffic passing overhead and going home smelling like river water and sex, satisfication giving away to an aching longing as he lies alone in his dark bedroom, his apartment feeling vast and empty.

***

But it’s easy to forget Peter is the reason for his hellish misery when Johnny feels like he’s in heaven, and heaven is being balls-deep in Peter Parker.

There are a lot of advantages to fucking Spider-Man, Johnny has discovered: the superhuman stamina, for one. The unnatural strength, which Johnny, as someone who enjoys a little manhandling in bed, greatly appreciates. The ridiculous flexibility, which Johnny might like best of all.

He’s taking advantage of that flexibility now, hooking Peter’s legs over his shoulders and leaning forward till Peter is practically bent in half, his knees nearly touching his ears, while Johnny slides in and out of him at a leisurely pace.

The angle is doing great things for Johnny, his dick wrapped in a grip that’s so tight it skims right on the edge of too much. It’s doing great things for Peter, too, who makes a gut-punched sound every time Johnny sinks home, his own dick drooling long sticky strings of precum all over his chest and throat, his face contorted in an expression of abject ecstasy, damp curls clinging to his forehead. Fucking gorgeous.

Johnny is thinking about engagement rings, wedding planning, honeymooning. He’s thinking about the possibility that if he bends Peter just a few degrees more, Peter could probably suck his own dick, which is simultaneously extremely unfair and a very hot scenario Johnny would like to further explore in the near future.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he breathlessly babbles, sweat stinging his eyes. “Is it good for you? Tell me if it’s good for you.”

Peter makes a helpless, incoherent little noise that Johnny takes as an affirmative, his eyes squeezed shut, curls bouncing with every thrust. He attempts to grab his dick, but Johnny bats his hand away.

“Wait for me, okay? Wait...let’s go together,” Johnny tells him, wrapping his hands around Peter’s wrists and pinning them above his head. 

“Yeah, yeah…whatever you want, I’ll do anything you want, _fuck,_ " Peter agrees, gasping as Johnny picks up the pace. “God, _please,_ just hurry up…”

Johnny slows down instead, dropping Peter’s legs from his shoulders and pulling them around his waist so that he can lie flush against him. He kisses Peter’s eyelids, his mouth, his eyelids again, soft and languid.

“Hey, look at me,” Johnny says, letting go of Peter’s wrists to cup his face, smoothing out the furrow in Peter’s brow with his thumbs while Peter opens his eyes to look up at him from under wet eyelashes. 

“Baby...pretty baby…” Johnny murmurs tenderly, snapping his hips forward in a forceful manner in direct contrast with the softness of his voice.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Peter bites out, his voice breaking, heels digging into the small of Johnny’s back. “Don’t—” 

His body goes taut, shaking as he comes, clenching up so tight that Johnny has no choice but to follow him over the edge.

The guitar-shredding angels have returned, this time with a full drum set and Freddie Mercury on vocals. Johnny thinks he blacks out for a moment, his vision going white then dark. When he comes back into his body, he’s lying heavily atop Peter, gasping open-mouthed against Peter’s shoulder like a landed fish, his cheek smeared with saliva.

“Fuck,” Johnny says breathlessly, rolling over and flopping down onto his back next to Peter, sprawled out. “That hands-free thing was a hell of a party trick.”

“Ha,” Peter replies, his tone brittle, sitting up and leaning over to grab a wad of tissues from the nightstand to wipe himself off. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, right? To entertain you?”

Johnny looks up at him, frowning. _”What?_ ”

“You just—don’t get it, do you?” Peter says, sounding furious and close to tears. “Do I need to fucking tattoo it on my face, huh?”

Johnny blinks rapidly, shaking his head in confusion. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“I go along with you and do all these _stupid_ reckless things that I _know_ I’m gonna regret—I’ve been stabbed, and shot, and nearly drowned for you,” Peter rants as he gathers up his clothes from the floor and yanks his pants on. “I watched _every_ shitty movie in the Fast and the Furious franchise because _you_ wanted to. I _always_ buy you onion rings—I can’t fucking afford onion rings! I am _broke_ , and I don’t mean like, ‘can’t afford the latest model of the Stark phone broke’—I am ‘my bank account is overdrawn again and I’m gonna be evicted’ broke, and I _still_ buy you those goddamn onion rings, because I’m an _idiot._ ”

“Onion rings?” Johnny says, utterly lost. “What the hell is happening? I just gave you an amazing orgasm—why are you yelling at me?”

“ _Because_ —‘cause of _you!_ ‘Cause you call me dumb stuff like...like _baby,_ and sweetheart, like...like you…”

“Is that _seriously_ what you’re mad about?” Johnny says, letting out an incredulous laugh. “‘Cause I’m sorry, alright? Just—chill, okay? I won’t do it again.” 

Peter presses his fists into his head, making a noise of incoherent, frustrated rage. “You are so— _stupid,_ just—the _stupidest_ person ever. You are stupid and ridiculous.” 

Johnny sits up, hurt and angry now as well as confused. “Yeah, well—you’re stupider and ridiculouser.” 

“It’s _more_ ridiculous, you dumb illiterate fuck,” Peter snaps, yanking his shirt on so violently it tears the collar. He makes another angry noise. “Fuck!” 

“Oh, excuuuuuuse me, Mr. Big Brain,” Johnny says mockingly. “I hope you’re smart enough to know that this was a pity fuck. And the time before that? Pity fuck. And the time before that? Pity fuck—they were _all_ pity fucks, because I might be stupid, but you? You _suck,_ and _everyone_ knows it.” 

Peter stops fussing with his ripped shirt and looks up at Johnny with wide, wounded eyes. He looks so hurt that Johnny feels an immediate stab of regret cut through his own anger and frustration. 

“Okay, whatever,” Peter mumbles, looking away as he puts his shoes on. “I’m leaving. I don’t think we should hang out anymore.” 

“Yeah, good idea,” Johnny snaps out, feeling like he’s being repeatedly stabbed in the gut. He watches Peter fumble his shoes on and head towards the door. 

“Hey, Pete,” Johnny says weakly, losing his nerve, scrambling for an apology. 

But Peter ignores him, stalking out and slamming the door behind him so hard the windows rattle. 

Johnny collapses backwards into bed, aching with regret. 

“Stupid, stupid, _stupid,_ ” he mutters, covering his face with his hands and groaning into his palms, wondering if anyone has ever fucked something up as spectacularly as he just did. 


	4. Chapter 4

“I screwed up big time,” Johnny says, collapsed across Mary Jane’s bed. “Turns out _I’m_ the dirtbag, and have been this whole time. I hate myself.”

“Oh, Johnny,” Mary Jane sighs as she stands in front of her mirror, her reflection pouting at him as she pulls her hair up into the perfect messy bun. She turns around to face him, her expression soft. “You’ve really got it bad for that boy, huh?”

“I do,” Johnny confirms with resignation. “And now I’ve fucked up everything.”

“Nonsense—this is perfect,” Mary Jane says brightly, sitting down on the end of the bed.

Johnny casts an incredulous look her way. “ _How_ is this perfect?”

Mary Jane rolls her eyes. “J, honey, do I really have to spell it out for you? From everything you’ve told me, it’s _obvious_ that Parker boy is just as stupidly in love with you as you are with him, and if you’d just listened to me and told him how you felt instead of being a big weenie, the two of you could be stupid happy together right now. _Think_ about it.”

Johnny blinks at her, stunned, the pieces abruptly dropping into place—the endless onion rings and the movie nights Peter always kept even though he couldn’t stay awake to save his life. The way he always asked for car rides despite it being faster to swing anywhere, cheerfully sitting through standstill traffic with Johnny even if it made him late. All of Johnny’s private little rendezvous out on Liberty Island with Spidey, who barely gives other superheroes the time of day but always makes space for him. MJ’s smutty romantic fanfiction— _art reflecting reality._

“Holy shit...” Johnny says, frowning. “Pete’s right...I am _so_ stupid.”

“The stupidest,” Mary Jane agrees, beaming at him.

Johnny sits up and looks at her pleadingly. “Okay, but—what do I do now, Red? I need a plan of action. I can’t live without that little fuckhead. I gotta fix this.”

Mary Jane shrugs. “That’s easy—step one, you go find him. Step two, you apologize for being a dick and confess your true feelings. Step three, you sweep him off his feet and make sweet, tender love to him.”

Johnny considers this plan a moment, then nods. “Yeah—that _does_ sound easy, wow. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Mary Jane shrugs again. “We can’t all be the brightest crayon in the box, J. You have other talents. Parker will be lucky to have you.”

“I think you just called me stupid again, but thanks.” Johnny takes her hands in his. “ _You_ are brilliant. I could kiss you.”

She smiles, tapping a finger against her dimpled cheek. “Lay it right here, bunny.”

He does, planting a big, wet one on her before departing, determined to execute this plan and get Peter back.

***

It turns out, however, that this plan is more difficult in practice than it is on paper.

Part one of the plan—the very vital _find Peter Parker_ part that the entire rest of the plan hinges upon—has been a complete flop so far. 

Johnny has stopped by Peter’s crappy apartment five times in the past three days, once even crawling through the unlocked bedroom window to investigate further, only to find it unoccupied each time. A visit to Aunt May has similarly been unsuccessful, as have all his calls and texts to Michelle and Ned and Flash asking if they know where Peter is. Johnny scours the city and the various SpideyWatch social media feeds, but Spider-Man has also seemingly vanished along with his alter-ego.

“Where the hell is that little nerd hiding?” Johnny mutters to himself, hovering above Brooklyn after yet another failed search of the city for Spidey.

He blows out a long breath and turns northward, streaking like a comet across the city and beyond as he heads towards the next location on his list of potential Spidey hideouts.

He spots Tony Stark’s lake house and descends towards it in a tight spiral, leaving a ribbon of flame trailing behind as he lands near the house’s back porch, singeing the leaves on the patch of begonias planted by the steps.

Johnny hops up the steps and throws the door open, passing into the kitchen and then straight back to the glass-lined sunroom where Tony seems to be spending his entire retirement doing weird boring old man things like fertilizing bonsai trees and talking to orchids.

Sure enough, Johnny finds Tony perched on a stool at a table in the sunroom, pruning a miniature rose bush. 

Johnny hops up onto a stool next to him. “Hey, my dude—you seen Peter lately?”

“First of all, I’m not your _dude,_ ” Tony replies, snipping a leaf from the rose bush. “And secondly, I thought I told you repeatedly to stay away from Peter.”

“Well, sorry, but your threats didn’t work. I’ve seen a lot of him,” Johnny says, picking up one of the pruned leaves from the table and lighting it on fire between his fingers. “Like, _a lot_ of him.”

Tony pauses his snipping, his head whipping around. He glares at Johnny over the rims of his reading glasses.

“What the hell does that mean? And think _very_ carefully about your answer, or I’ll be using these pruning shears on _you_ ,” Tony warns him, waving the shears threateningly.

Johnny sighs. “Okay, so long story short—me and Pete have had this super hot friends with benefits thing going on, but—”

“Oh, god— _you_ and _Peter,_ ” Tony chokes out, dropping the shears and sliding bonelessly off his stool. He collapses dramatically to the ground and clutches at his left arm, his face twisted in agony. “This is it. This is the big one.”

“Hang on, I’m not done yet, and it’s kinda a funny story—but like, _tragic_ funny,” Johnny continues, sitting down on the floor beside Tony. “‘Cause see, this whole time I’ve had it real bad for Pete, right? But I thought he just wanted to get his dick wet. But it turns out— _he_ thought the _same_ thing about _me_ , and we had this big fight and he stormed out. And now I’m trying to woo him back, beg for his forgiveness, and then spend the rest of my days making sweet love to him. So if you see him, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell him I’m looking for him.”

“You—I’m gonna—kill you,” Tony spits at him, red-faced and sweating, his eyes popping. He claws at his chest with one hand and shakes his other fist at Johnny, wheezing with apoplectic rage. “I’m gonna… _murder_ you, I’ll—shove those shears where—”

“Dude,” Johnny says, concerned. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to blow an artery.”

Tony jabs a finger towards the door. “ _Get out!_ ”

“Alright, alright, chill,” Johnny says sourly, getting to his feet and walking towards the door. He pauses there at the threshold for a moment, turning around to address Tony again. “For real, though—if Pete stops by, could you tell him I really need to talk to him?”

Tony reaches up and grabs the rose bush, hurling it at Johnny’s head.

Johnny ducks as the pot flies by and smashes against the wall. 

“I’ll take that as a negatory,” he says, saluting Tony before leaving.

***

Johnny gets a lucky break the next day—a swarm of resurrected subultron bots descends upon the city, raining chaos and destruction.

“Why the hell are you so chipper, smiley?” Ben asks him as they get suited up to address the threat. “The city’s about to be annihilated, and you’re lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“Yeah, I know, this is perfect,” Johnny says cheerfully, tugging his boots on. “This is exactly the kind of chaotic punch-em-up Spidey loves. He won’t be able to resist coming out to join the party. I’ll finally get my chance to talk to him.”

Ben stares at him for a long moment before shaking his craggy head.

“You two ain’t right in the head,” he grumbles, heading for the exit. “It’s a match made in lalaland.”

“But you agree—we _are_ a match,” Johnny says, beaming as he follows Ben out the door and into the chaos beyond.

Johnny ignites and takes to the air, providing cover for fleeing civilians and blowing apart bots, keeping one eye out for Spider-Man all the while. 

But an hour or so later, Johnny still hasn’t caught even a glimpse of him anywhere.

“Where the heck is Spidey?” he asks, dejected, as he lands beside Ben. “There’s _no way_ he’d miss the opportunity to go completely feral and violently rip the arms off some robots.”

“You need to talk that kid into going to therapy or doing an anger management course or something,” Ben grunts, smashing a pair of bots together and producing a shower of sparks. 

“I mean, you’re not wrong, but I gotta find the little dweeb first,” Johnny says unhappily, taking flight again.

He zips around skyscrapers for a bit, melting subultron bots and carrying civilians to safety, searching the whole time for Spider-Man without any luck. He dives down, zipping past Reed and Captain America with his band of Avengers and a handful of familiar neighborhood vigilantes who have joined the fray.

“Anybody seen Spidey?” Johnny asks them as he passes by, weaving around photon beams and falling debris. “Anyone? Anyone?”

He spots Daredevil jamming the end of his baton through a robot’s eye and zooms down to land nearby.

“Yo, Double D!” Johnny calls, waving his arms to get his attention. “Have you seen Spidey around anywhere?”

“I don’t know anything about your boyfriend,” Daredevil curtly replies, flipping out of the way of a car hurled in his direction.

“Damn,” Johnny says, crestfallen, before immediately perking up. “Wait—do you actually think he’s my boyfriend, or are you just being a dick? Did _he_ tell you he’s my boyfriend— _ow!_ ”

Sue has turned visible right next to him and grabbed him by the ear.

“Johnny, get your head in the game or I’m gonna bench you,” she hisses, giving his ear one last vicious twist before releasing him. 

“My head _is_ in the game, jeez,” Johnny insists, rubbing his earlobe. “I got this, alright?”

He takes to the air again and incinerates a handful of bots just to prove it to her, but then his mind is back on Spider-Man. He scorches the sky above the melee, searching the sides of buildings for a glimpse of a red-and-blue-clad figure, but coming up with nothing. 

Johnny’s legitimately starting to get worried, images of Peter lying crushed like a bug under debris or blown apart by murder bots dancing nightmarishly through his mind.

He’s so preoccupied with these thoughts that he completely misses the subultron bot that comes flying up from below like a shark going in for the kill until it’s too close to avoid. 

“Fuck!” he yelps as a photon beam clips his shin. He twists out of the way of another beam that blazes past his face so close that it momentarily blinds him, wildly zigzagging as he tries to get away. 

The bot tackles him from behind and they go tumbling out of the sky together, slamming into the ground so hard that Johnny’s flames extinguish.

He lies there stunned on the asphalt, winded and blinking blood out of his eyes. He’s too disoriented to fight back as metal fingers close around his throat and lift him off the ground, brutally squeezing his windpipe while he chokes and feebly kicks his legs, eyes watering as he looks into the impassive face of the bot intent on murdering him.

It menacingly raises its free arm, the repulsor in its palm whining as it starts to glow.

Johnny sees his life flash before his eyes. It involves a lot of Instagram selfies and solo takeout meals and unfulfilling one-night stands, which is a little depressing.

He squeezes his eyes shut, but the killing blow never comes. He feels the bot jolt and shudder instead.

Johnny cracks an eye open, and then the other, both going wide and round when he spots what’s saved him from imminent death. 

A red gloved fist protrudes from the bot’s chest, skewering it from behind.

“Oh, boy, you’re fucked now, you piece of junk,” Johnny wheezes past the robotic hand clamped around his throat, before collapsing in a heap on the ground as the bot drops him.

Johnny sits sprawled out on his ass and elbows and watches as the bot spins around to face its attacker.

It raises an arm, the repulsor glowing again, only to have the limb torn from its body in a spray of sparks. The other arm suffers the same fate a second later, Spider-Man then using the amputated limb like a bludgeon to viciously bash the bot in the face over and over until it collapses to the ground, its head resembling a smashed soda can.

Spider-Man throws the arm aside and straddles the downed bot, continuing the brutal beat down with his fists, pummeling the bot while it sparks and jerks.

“Okay, Spidey—that’s enough,” Johnny finally says, starting to feel a little queasy. “You got it, dude, you showed that bot who’s boss. It’s not gonna get up again, I promise.”

Peter ignores him, pounding away the robot while it twitches grotesquely under the onslaught, blood splattering across its metallic exoskeleton from Peter’s split knuckles.

Johnny hauls himself to his feet and staggers over, grabbing Peter under the arms and dragging him backwards before he can further maim himself.

“That’s it, man. That’s it. I’m okay,” he murmurs into Peter’s ear. “You saved me, like a big damn hero. My hero.”

Peter twists around and seizes him around the middle in a rib-crushing embrace, lifting Johnny off his feet.

“Spidey,” Johnny croaks out, wheezing again, feeling like his eyeballs are about to be popped out of his skull. “Buddy. Pal. It’s okay.”

Peter says nothing, but Johnny feels him take a shuddering breath.

“Baby,” Johnny croons softly. “Baby, baby.”

Peter lets go of him, stepping back. One of his mask’s lenses has been shattered, and Johnny can see a shining brown eye looking him up and down, searchingly, before landing on the cut on Johnny’s forehead.

“You’re bleeding,” Peter says quietly, sounding completely heartbroken.

“So are you,” Johnny replies, gesturing to the dark stain rapidly spreading across Peter’s midsection.

Peter looks down at himself, and then sways like a tree in high winds, as if seeing his injuries have made them real to him. 

Johnny grabs him right as Peter’s legs give out, gently lowering him to the ground. Peter’s head lolls against Johnny’s shoulder, his breath coming in shallow gasps.

“I think I’m done,” he weakly informs Johnny.

“Yep, you sure are, buddy,” Johnny agrees, patting Peter’s chest. He sniffs at him, wrinkling his nose. “You smell like shit.”

Peter nods resignedly. “Yeah, I know. I was down in the sewers. The dude that released the bots rigged a bomb down there, too. I disabled it, but it was a messy job. There were more bots down there, and some _literal_ shit-flinging went on.”

Johnny pats him again. “You did good. Okay, decision time—you want me to take you to Avengers HQ? Or the Baxter Building?”

Peter turns his head, his one visible eye slowly blinking as he gazes up at Johnny. 

“I wanna go home with you,” he murmurs.

“Okay, Baxter Building it is,” Johnny says breezily, but Peter grabs his arm.

“No...I wanna go back to your apartment. Please,” Peter clarifies.

Johnny looks down at him, chewing the inside of his cheeks indecisively for a long moment before nodding. “Yeah, alright—but you gotta _swear_ on your uncle Ben’s grave that you’re not gonna die in my bed if I do.”

“I swear on my uncle’s grave I’m not gonna die,” Peter solemnly promises, which would be a lot more believable if he wasn’t actively bleeding to death.

But Johnny’s seen Spider-Man miraculously survive plenty of gruesome injuries that would put mere mortals six feet under, so he accepts the promise, sliding an arm under Peter’s knees and picking him up. It’s not exactly what he had in mind when Mary Jane had told him to sweep Peter off his feet, but Johnny can work with it.

He takes a few unsteady steps, grunting under Peter’s weight. “You need to lay off the hotdogs and onion rings, man. Your dump truck’s getting a little thick.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Peter mumbles back.

“Aw, c’mon. You know I’m teasing,” Johnny says, hoisting Peter higher. “I love your big juicy peach. I’d bend you over and take a bite outta it right now.”

“Okay, put me down, I’ve changed my mind. Just leave me here to die.”

“Too late—you made your choice. You’re coming with me,” Johnny says cheerfully, taking flight.

***

“We’re burning this suit, bud,” Johnny says, peeling Peter out of the sewage-stained Spidey suit and tossing it into a corner of the bathroom.

“Aw, no—this is my favorite one,” Peter protests weakly, folding his arms over his bruised, bloody bare chest and shivering. “Just put a little bleach in the wash and it’ll be fine.”

“We’re burning it to cinders,” Johnny firmly repeats, turning the shower on and pushing Peter under the spray. “This suit smells like the bathroom after Ben goes on a Taco Bell bender. It can’t be saved. Here, bend over a little—lemme wash your hair.”

Johnny squirts half the bottle of shampoo over Peter’s sweaty, matted curls, vigorously scrubbing his head and wrinkling his nose as the floral scent of soap mingles with the reek of sewer.

“We might have to repeat this a few times,” he says, rinsing out blood and suds. “You good, or do you need to lie down?”

“I’m okay,” Peter murmurs, looking completely pitiful. He sniffs wetly as Johnny pours more shampoo over his head.

Johnny pauses his scrubbing, frowning as he looks at Peter’s face. “Aw, Pete...are you crying?”

“No. Maybe. Yes,” Peter replies, sniffling again. “It’s just...this is like, the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time, and blood loss always makes me weepy for some reason.”

“Parker, man...your life makes me depressed. You are just so… _sad,_ ” Johnny says, gathering Peter into a wet, soapy hug, not even caring when his own suit gets soaked.

“I know. I’m awful and pathetic,” Peter agrees, laying his head on Johnny’s shoulder. He takes a shaky breath. 

“That stuff you said the other day, about me...about...about _us_...did you mean it?” he asks, his voice breaking. 

“Not a single bit of it,” Johnny says, squeezing him tighter. “I was just being a dick. I’m sorry.”

Peter takes another shaky breath, nodding against his shoulder.

“And...when you call me dumb shit like...baby, or sweetheart…”

Johnny takes Peter’s head in his hands and lifts it from his shoulder so he can look him in the face.

“Now that I meant. Truth is—I love you, Pete,” he says, emphasizing the words by kissing Peter. “You might be a pathetic piece of shit, but you’re _my_ pathetic piece of shit.”

Peter huffs out a little laugh, offering Johnny a smile.

“God, that’s a relief,” he says, his eyes shining. “I’m sorry, too.”

“If you’re apologizing for being a dirtbag, don’t bother,” Johnny says, kissing him again. “I know you’re not gonna change.”

Peter laughs again, wincing.

“Yeah...but I mean I’m sorry I never told you that I’m Spider-Man. It wasn’t ‘cause I don’t trust you—I trust you with my life, Johnny. It’s...I got this thing...it’s like, a curse...I get close to people, and then something bad happens to them, and...I didn’t tell you ‘cause I was scared you’d get hurt. ‘Cause...because I love you. That’s all,” he says, his eyes soft. “I love you, Johnny.”

“I know. Sorry it took me so long to figure it out,” Johnny says, planting another kiss on Peter’s mouth. He grins at him. “You know, as an unrepentant adrenaline junkie, I find the whole danger aspect _very_ sexy, definitely a boner-popper. If you didn’t still smell like the subway during a heat wave, I’d be all over you making sweet, tender love to you right now.”

Peter grimaces, his own smile turned apologetic. “Yeah...sorry. In my past experiences with being doused in human sewage, the smell usually takes a few days to completely dissipate, regardless of the numbers of showers you take.”

“God, you are a _disgusting_ little trash panda, just completely revolting. Fuck it,” Johnny says, stepping back and stripping off his own suit and getting into the shower with Peter. “I want you bad, baby.”

“Seriously, though—I hate the cringey cutesy names,” Peter says, putting his arms around Johnny’s neck and kissing him. “You gotta cut that shit out.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” Johnny replies, grinning against Peter’s lips as he returns the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can also find me on tumblr as [groo-ock](https://groo-ock.tumblr.com)


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